The search for high efficiency of productive resources has been a basic concern of most manufacturing managers for a long time, in their constant attempts to obtain lower production costs. This managerial practice emerged with the mass production principles, and during recent decades has been shown to be inadequate and has converted itself into a great obstacle for manufacturing management based on the real competitive dimensions required by the current marketplace. This paper deals with this subject from the perspective of the balancing and use of over capacity, and presents a quantitative approach to facilitate the analysis and propositions conducted. The final remarks highlight the importance of dealing with productive resources capacity in an integrated manner, instead of the traditional practice focused on the optimization of isolated resources.
capacity management; capacity balancing; manufacturing strategy
