Placement of effective work-in-progress limits in route-specific unit-based pull systems

Ziengs, Nick; Riezebos, Jan; Germs, Remco

doi:10.1080/00207543.2011.590537

Cited by 18 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Each pair of consecutive stations, often referred to as cells in the POLCA literature, in the routing of a job has a POLCA card that identifies the two stations. A major difference between POLCA and, for example, kanban systems is that POLCA cards are job anonymous (Riezebos et al [27]; Ziengs et al [36]) while kanban cards are not (Shingo [29]). In this aspect, POLCA cards resemble ConWIP (Constant Work-In-Process) cards.…”

Section: Mechanisms Underpinning a Polca Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving performance in POLCA controlled high variety shops: An assessment by simulation

Thürer

Fernandes

Silva

et al. 2017

Journal of Manufacturing Systems

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POLCA (i.e. Paired-cell Overlapping Loops of Cards with Authorization) is a card-based production control approach developed to support the adoption of Quick Response Manufacturing. The approach has received significant research attention but has remained largely unchanged since its introduction in the late 1990s. The main improvements have occurred in the context of an electronic POLCA system, but such developments undermine the simplicity of the original card-based concept. We ask: is there any refinement possible to enhance the performance of POLCA without jeopardizing its simplicity? By analyzing POLCA, two possible refinements are identified: (i) the choice of rule to support both the card allocation and dispatching decisions; and (ii) the use of a starvation avoidance mechanism to overcome premature station idleness, as reported in the context of load limiting order release.Using simulation, we demonstrate that performance gains can be obtained by using different rules for card allocation and dispatching other than the earliest release date rule typically applied in POLCA for both decisions. Further, results demonstrate performance improvements for all combinations of card allocation and dispatching rules considered via the addition of a simple starvation avoidance mechanism. Both refinements significantly enhance POLCA performance, potentially furthering its application in practice.

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Section: Mechanisms Underpinning a Polca Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent simulation studies on POLCA (e.g. Germs & Riezebos [12]; Ziengs et al [36]), a simple divergent shop structure was used. However, make-to-order companies that produce a high variety of products often use a functional layout and operate as some form of job shop (e.g.…”

Section: Overview Of Modeled Shop and Job Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving performance in POLCA controlled high variety shops: An assessment by simulation

Thürer

Fernandes

Silva

et al. 2017

Journal of Manufacturing Systems

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“…In the study from Cuatrecasas-Arbós [5] in determining the production lead time, it is preferable to correlate a production lead time with the WIP level rather than the process cycle time. Another study from Ziengs [19] examined limiting the WIP level by creating a unit-base pull system to ease the determination of throughput time on the production line.…”

Section: Work-in-progress Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The literature review for this case study is summarized in Table 1, below.Hereafter, a few issues have been experienced by the authors (Cuatrecasas-Arbós [5], Savino [14], Oladipapo [3], Ziengs [19]) in studying inventory from the actual shop floor production parameter perspective, such as process setting time, machine upload efficiency, process cycle time in the overall process and information flow in actual operation. The papers on VSM application by Lasa [8] and Harwinder [1] show that lean tools initially improve the floor activities.…”

Section: Case Study Gap Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Work-in-Progress Inventory Control Case Study in Lean Management

Tan¹,

Jamaludin²,

Hamzah³

2018

IJET

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Increasing the rate of converting raw material into finished product and delivering it on time is a main driver for each manufacturing industry to achieve continuous improvement in its business operation. This case study demonstrates the improvement of the work-in-progress inventory in a non-lean company seeking to adopt lean management. Introducing the value stream mapping (VSM) lean technique to identify the waste in the current production operation. A selection of lean tools such as Kanban card, supermarket racking and one-piece flow are applied to control and monitor the WIP inventory after justification of the factors (process cycle time, production facilities layout and facilities capacity allocation) that influence the change from the current production operation situation.The construction of the current VSM had identified the major waste in WIP inventory handling in the final fabrication process. The fluctuation of WIP inventory has been resolved by the implementation of supermarket racking; therefore, an improvement base for WIP inventory control has been established. Throughout this study, the lean management concept had been fostered into the production floor team and will continue developing to the organization.

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“…Unit-based mechanisms, on the other hand, would not quantify the difference in the workload impacts of releasing a unit of a short processing time and a high processing time product into a system. However, load-based mechanisms are generally less used than unit-based mechanisms, because of challenges that have to do with accurate quantification of the load impact of released item units, as well as the complexity of their software and hardware requirements for implementation and execution [12]. As evident in the COBACABANA, for which two methods of representing workload have been reported [4,13], it can be difficult to find a trade-off between requiring many cards to precisely represent different product workload ranges and reducing the number of cards with the implication of a less precise load representation.…”

Section: Review Of Literature On Related Control Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Nested Configuration of POLCA and Generic Kanban in a High Product Mix Manufacturing System

Olaitan

Fragapane

Alfnes

et al. 2017

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

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The work presented in this paper is part of a project aimed at streamlining and improving the process flow at a leather furniture manufacturing company. The manufacturing throughput time is highly variable, and this makes planning difficult for the assembly of components at the downstream stages. Throughput time predictability at the upstream stages where the components are manufactured would facilitate the planning of their assembly according to their expected arrival times for specific product models. Research conducted in a previous phase of the project showed that the application of the CONstant Work In Progress (CONWIP) control mechanism to regulate inventory yielded significant improvements in the throughput time's mean and variation. However, as it is the case with tighter control of inventory in manufacturing, previously unrealised problems were exposed in relation to the selection of the product model to release into the CONWIP loop. This has significant impact on the balance of the distribution of workload across the system's workstations and among the multi-skilled teams at one of the workstations. This research implements a nested configuration of the Paired-cell Overlapping Loop Of Cards with Authorisation (POLCA) and the Generic Kanban control mechanisms to achieve a balance of the workloads. This ensures a synchronised flow of the different product mix through the entire manufacturing system.

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Placement of effective work-in-progress limits in route-specific unit-based pull systems

Cited by 18 publications

References 21 publications

Improving performance in POLCA controlled high variety shops: An assessment by simulation

Improving performance in POLCA controlled high variety shops: An assessment by simulation

Work-in-Progress Inventory Control Case Study in Lean Management

A Nested Configuration of POLCA and Generic Kanban in a High Product Mix Manufacturing System

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