Analysis of the Relationship amongst Production Efficiency, Product Complexity and Target Market

The objective of this article is to analyze the effect of both target market and product complexity on the production activities in an industrial goods company of Brazil. Nine projects developed and manufactured by the company were monitored and their pertaining data collected, according to the planning of a factorial experiment involving two independent variables (target market and product complexity) and two result variables used two measure production efficiency: percentage of production overtime actually spent as compared to planning, and rework man-hours production. Results showed that products for the American and European markets receive a differentiated treatment due to the market factor. Other factor statistically significant, was that high complexity products for the American and European markets showed cost prevision errors (under estimate) as long as low complexity products for the internal market, showed cost prevision errors (over estimate).