A major challenge in designing and controlling flow lines is to achieve high customer service level while stay lean. Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing approach has triggered various 'pull production system', such as CONWIP or Kanban controls, which emphasizes on response to demand rather than forecasts. We identified and documented the anatomy of various pull type control policies. Based on the analysis, we designed a new class of control policy called Extended CONWIP Kanban control (ECK). We conducted comprehensive simulation comparison studies. Simulation results showed that the new control policy can achieve higher service levels with lower inventories than other policies including hybrid ones. We developed a state space comparison methodology to compare various policies with that of optimum solution. Our analysis reveals that our ECK policy provides the most adjustment flexibility toward the optimum. We also proposed a parameter design procedure and an adaptive parameter adjusting system. A case study verifies the advantages and utilities of the ECK policy. Beside the cost savings, another major advantage of the ECK policy is its robustness. That is, the total cost of the ECK policy is less sensitive to demand or system variations.

In many situations, different consumers have different degrees of willingness to wait to get delivery of a product. So, consumers can be segregated based upon the demand lead time they are providing. In this paper, two types of consumers have been considered. The first category needs immediate delivery of the product, so there is no demand lead time; whereas for the other category, demand lead time is positive. A manufacturer, which produces the items using a base stock policy, can benefit from the advance demand information that the second category of consumers are providing. Early fulfillment for a particular order means fulfilling the order before the demand lead time. In this research, it is shown that a restrictive early fulfillment policy can help the firm to reduce the chances of order loss. A production control approach for restrictive early fulfillment is discussed and the factors that may affect the early fulfillment policy are examined. / Master of Science

As the effort of today’s industries to continuously move towards lean production, pull production system has been developed as one possible solution of lean. It is popularly known in the industry world, and is indeed a proven technique to achieve substantial savings on inventory, production cost incurred by manufactures all over the world. However, a careful understanding of pull production systems is required to access its suitability to a particular production setup. It is necessary to develop a proper way to implement pull production systems.             This study is based on a real life scenario in a leading driveline manufacturing company. The production system is studied in detail as regard to its production characteristic. A theoretical review is first made as research foundation. A careful analysis study within the company is conducted with all the existing constrains to figure out improvement opportunities. Eventually, from the applicability point of view, proposals of future pull production system implementation have been developed. The objective of the proposals is to minimize the identified weaknesses of the current system, including long lead time, low flexibility and unconnected flow.