Abstract (EN)

In mass customization production systems, end-products diversity proceeds from the combination of hundreds of alternative components (ACs) involved in the final assembly stage. Since diversity is very important, forecasts cannot be done directly at the end-product level for production planning purposes. Thus, it is generally agreed in a mass customization context that Master Production Schedules (MPSs) have to be defined for each AC rather than each end-product. Nevertheless, some issues may hamper this approach. First, the MPSs have to be consistent with the technical and commercial constraints that prevent some ACs combinations. Second, due to longer lead times resulting from globalization, production planning must accommodate with uncertainty over the frozen horizon. To address these issues in the automotive sector, a new way to represent product through the concept of the Alternative Services (ASs), which refers to the alternative commercial features offered to the customer, has been introduced by some carmakers. This paper proposes a description of this approach and discusses its relevance regarding the issues of the classical production planning process. Some suggestions are proposed to overcome the limitations of the approach based on the ASs.