Title: An investigation of the influence of coefficient of variation in the demand distribution on the performance of several lean production control strategies

Authors: John Geraghty, Cathal Heavey

Addresses: Enterprise Process Research Centre, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland. ' Enterprise Research Centre, Department of Manufacturing and Operations Engineering, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

Abstract: This paper presents a comparison of five lean production control strategies, namely Kanban control strategy, CONWIP, Hybrid Kanban-CONWIP, basestock control strategy and extended Kanban control strategy. The strategies were examined under a light-to-medium demand load with increasing coefficient of variation. Discrete event simulation was used to compare the performances of strategies under the criteria of obtaining a given service level with minimal WIP. The results show that under a light-to-medium variable demand load Hybrid Kanban-CONWIP is the best strategy with KCS consistently the worst performer.

Keywords: lean production control; LPCS; kanban; constant work in progress control; CONWIP; hybrid kanban-CONWIP; HK-CONWIP; basestock; extended kanban control; coefficient of variation; demand distribution.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2010.032894

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2010 Vol.20 No.1/2/3/4, pp.94 - 119

Published online: 05 May 2010 *

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