ON THE DESIGN OF GENERALIZED KANBAN CONTROL-SYSTEMS

Considers a class of control systems known as generalized kanban contr ol systems (GKCS) which can be used to implement a pull control mechan ism in a manufacturing system. In a GKCS, the production system is dec omposed into stages, where each stage consists of a production sub-sys tem. There are two design parameters per stage: one controls the work- in-process in the stage and the other determines the maximum number of finished products of this stage. Investigates the influence of these design parameters on the efficiency of generalized kanban control poli cies by deriving qualitative properties as well as using experimental results on the behaviour of GKCS.