Article ID: | iaor19961578 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 8 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 5 |
End Page Number: | 21 |
Publication Date: | Jan 1996 |
Journal: | International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems |
Authors: | Millar Harvey H., Yang Tao |
Keywords: | batch size |
Production lead-time performance in flexible manufacturing systems is influenced by several factors which include: machine groupings, demand rates, machine processing rates, product batching, material handling system capacity, and so on. Hence, control of lead-time performance can be affected through the manipulation of one or more of these variables. In this article, the authors investigate the potential of batch sizing as a control variable for lead-time performance through the use of a queueing network model. They establish a functional relationship between the two variables, and incorporate the relationship in an optimization model to determine the optimal batch size(s) which minimizes the sum of annual work-in-process inventory and final inventory costs. The nonlinear batch sizing problem which results is solved by discrete optimization via marginal analysis. Results show that batch sizing can be a cheap and effective variable for controlling flexible manufacturing system throughput.