Lecture title: Work-In-Process Control in (High Variety) Manufacturing

Reported by: Professor Ruud Teunter, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Time: 15:30-17:30, October 27, 2022

Tencent Conference No.: 804-256-711

Introduction to the report:

Reducing Work-In-Process (WIP) in manufacturing systems is associated with advantages such as predictable throughput times and increased manageability. To achieve this, an abundance of WIP control methods have been developed, such as CONWIP and Kanban for repetitive manufacturing, and LUMS COR and POLCA for high-variety manufacturing. These methods take three types of control decisions: release (entry to the manufacturing system), authorization (entry to a work centre) and dispatching (order selection at a work centre). All existing WIP control methods are hierarchical by first deciding on release and authorization, before making dispatching decisions and doing so based on local (work centre) information.

Smart industry developments have led to more data (via sensors) becoming available real-time at the system level, and in that light one can question the use of local information in a hierarchical setup. Correspondingly, in this seminar, I propose and discuss two new methods. The first does not consider release and authorization decisions, but does take into consideration the global system state when dispatching. The second method considers all decisions simultaneously based on the global system state. I present simulation results, showing the new methods considerably outperform existing ones in terms of reduced WIP and improved delivery performance measures.

Brief introduction of the reporter:

Ruud Teunter holds a chair in Operations Research at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. In the past, he held positions at Universities in Magdeburg (Germany), Thessaloniki (Greece), Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and Lancaster (UK). His research interests include: forecasting and inventory control, service logistics, workload control, sustainable/energy logistics, and maintenance optimization. He has co-authored over 100 papers (H index: Scopus 43, GS 55) in a variety of Operations management/research, maintenance, and energy journals. He is co-Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Operational Research, and Fellow & Past President of the International Society for Inventory Research.

(Undertaken by: Department of Management Science and Logistics, Scientific Research and Academic Exchange Center)