A NEW APPROACH OF FLEXIBILITY PLANNING A REALITY OR A SEARCH OF THE HOLY GRAIL

Abstract In the new context of “contract-order”, companies are engaged with their customers on a global program of delivery orders. Each order concerns the deliver of quantities (varying between a minimum and a maximum value) of products at precise moments. The exact quantities are known only few days before the delivery. This variability of delivery quantities needs the management in an efficient way of some flexibility levers in order to guarantee the service engagement and minimize the costs. In this paper, a new approach of flexibility planning will be presented. This approach tends to satisfy these goals and takes into account internal and external constraints of these companies. The most important internal constraint is the evidence presence of a bottleneck resource. An external constraint must be obviously satisfied which is the imposed regulations.