Kanban systems are well-known for their ability to operate production lines smoothly and according to demand by keeping the work-in-process down on some pre\-specified level. The problem of determining the right number of kanbans to be assigned to individual production stages is still not well understood. This paper attempts to attain more insight into the behavior of kanban systems and to derive general design rules for the allocation of kanbans which can be used by the practitioner. The production systems under consideration are serial production lines with identical and non-identical machines. Kanban allocation patterns are compared with respect to maximum throughput and minimal work-in-process. In the case of non-identical machines, capacity and variability bottlenecks are considered. The results will be compared with results available for the allocation of buffers in finite-buffer production lines.
By: Markus Ettl and Hansjoerg Fromm (IBM German Manufacturing Technology Center, Germany)
Published in: RC20158 in 1995
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