Instability in Pull Systems (flexible kanbans)
Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 4:16 pm
Dear SDS friends,
It has been argued in the Production Planning and Control literature that
"pull" (or Just-in-Time type systems) are not suitable for operation in
environments where demand is unstable or volatile.
Has anybody been involved with supply chain instability studies in this
area? Or can anyone point me to previous related studies?
I have conducted a comprehensive search in past e-mails exchanged in this
listserv and it indicates that discussions around this topic did not take
place.
I am a Ph.D. student working on investigating the impacts of "flexible
kanban systems" on the on-time-delivery performance of pull systems from a
system dynamics point of view. In this case, a flexible kanban system
differs from a "traditional kanban system" (as originally proposed at
Toyota) in the sense that the number of kanban cards regulating the levels
of work in process inventory is allowed to change over time. Traditional
pull systems using kanbans tend to keep the number of cards constant during
production cycles and only change them in the event of major changes in
production capacity.
Thanks you for your attention!
Sincerely,
George
___________________________________________________________
George W. L. Sousa, Ph.D. Candidate & Graduate Research Assistant
Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Enterprise Engineering Research Lab
302B Whittemore Hall, Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0118 USA
phone: +1(540)231-6920
email: gsousa@vt.edu
http://www.ise.vt.edu/eerl_lab.htm
It has been argued in the Production Planning and Control literature that
"pull" (or Just-in-Time type systems) are not suitable for operation in
environments where demand is unstable or volatile.
Has anybody been involved with supply chain instability studies in this
area? Or can anyone point me to previous related studies?
I have conducted a comprehensive search in past e-mails exchanged in this
listserv and it indicates that discussions around this topic did not take
place.
I am a Ph.D. student working on investigating the impacts of "flexible
kanban systems" on the on-time-delivery performance of pull systems from a
system dynamics point of view. In this case, a flexible kanban system
differs from a "traditional kanban system" (as originally proposed at
Toyota) in the sense that the number of kanban cards regulating the levels
of work in process inventory is allowed to change over time. Traditional
pull systems using kanbans tend to keep the number of cards constant during
production cycles and only change them in the event of major changes in
production capacity.
Thanks you for your attention!
Sincerely,
George
___________________________________________________________
George W. L. Sousa, Ph.D. Candidate & Graduate Research Assistant
Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Enterprise Engineering Research Lab
302B Whittemore Hall, Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0118 USA
phone: +1(540)231-6920
email: gsousa@vt.edu
http://www.ise.vt.edu/eerl_lab.htm