AN INFORMATION ENTROPY APPROACH TO THE SMALL-LOT CONCEPT

Just-In-Time and Total Quality Management advocate the use of small lo ts in production, as they yield higher throughout, better quality, low er response time, less operating expenses, better due date performance , and less work in process. Implementation of the small-lot concept is often resisted by MIS managers and production people who feel that th e larger number of lots-the apparently inevitable result of reducing l ot size, will entail more information and stronger information technol ogy. By developing a normative model, based on the entropy measurement , this paper claims that the move toward smaller lots implies less inf ormation needs. Theorems concerning the relationship between quantity of information and lot size are proved, showing that the new direction s that manufacturing is taking entail less information needs.