Unified framework for describing and comparing the dynamics of pull control policies

In this paper we propose a unified formulation based on (min, +) algebra to express the dynamics of pull control policies for serial single product manufacturing systems. For policies such as basestock, kanban, extended kanban and generalized kanban, the formulation has the same parametric form with different parameters for each policy. To calculate these parameters efficiently, (min, +) algebra tools are used. This formulation allows us to identify under what parameter values two different policies have the same dynamics behavior. This has been applied to extended kanban and generalized kanban.