ABSTRACT
Multiproducts Limited was a large engineering firm, located on the outskirts of London. The firm was one of a large group of companies. It manufactured light engineering products, making fairly small batches of a large variety of components. The firm employed about 4,000 people altogether. Multiproducts’ reputation was partly founded upon quick customer service. It was regarded as legitimate by company management to interrupt production programmes for urgent orders. Under the economic conditions prevailing at the time, a credit squeeze constrained company management to keep stocks of materials, tools, and work-in-progress as low as possible. Only minimum-sized batches were produced. The shorter the batch the more frequent was the need to reset machines, and the greater the call on planning ability, tools and services. The problem of deciding optimum batch sizes preoccupied many people in the company. There appeared to be frequent crises.
