Rr. Inman et al., IN-PLANT MATERIAL BUFFER SIZES FOR PULL SYSTEM AND LEVEL-MATERIAL-SHIPPING ENVIRONMENTS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY, International Journal of Production Research, 35(5), 1997, pp. 1213-1228
Citations number
27
Categorie Soggetti
Engineering,"Operatione Research & Management Science
Traditionally automotive assembly plants operate with at least two wee
ks of frozen vehicle orders enabling them to calculate the amount of m
aterial needed for the next two weeks. Implementing a pull system betw
een the plant and its customers, and level-material-shipping between t
he plant and its suppliers, changes the amount of material buffer need
ed within the assembly plant. The pull system eliminates the frozen ve
hicle-order schedule, without which plants cannot calculate the materi
al needed, but must use inventory to buffer the line from random deman
d. Level-material-shipping, a just-in-time principle that provides sup
pliers with a constant shipping schedule, forces plants to use materia
l inventory to buffer the line from un-level demand for parts resultin
g from un-level production or an un-level model mix. We model these ef
fects to derive formulas for the buffer needed to provide a given serv
ice level in the face of demand variability, un-level production, and
un-level model-mix.