Case—The Fendt VarioTakt: Revolutionizing Mixed-Model Assembly Line Production

[摘要] On a sunny day in southern Germany, Peter Bebersdorf— tractor plant manager of the Marktoberdorf site of Fendt, a global agricultural machinery manufacturer— was standing in front of his office window looking out at the Alps panorama and thinking about the past few weeks of leadership meetings. The management team discussions had mainly involved the dilemma of how to exceed their annual productivity improvement goalof 6%, a target setbyFendt’s parent company (AllisGleaner Corporation (AGCO),basedin theUnited States), whereas its product diversity continued to increase. Currently, Fendt was manufacturing eight tractor models in a seemingly unlimited number of configurations.

[学科分类] 数学（综合）

[关键词] assembly line balancing;mixed-model assembly lines;variable rate launching;variable takt times