| Article ID: | iaor1993885 |
| Country: | United States |
| Volume: | 40 |
| Issue: | 5 |
| Start Page Number: | 948 |
| End Page Number: | 958 |
| Publication Date: | Sep 1992 |
| Journal: | Operations Research |
| Authors: | Spearman Mark L. |
| Keywords: | service |
In this paper, the issue of customer service in pull production systems is considered. The paper first discusses the meaning of customer service in a pull system and contrasts it to push systems. It also discusses both pure and hybrid pull systems that are found in the literature. The paper then investigates the effects of changing inventory levels and processing time characteristics on customer service in a pure kanban system. Finally, it shows that a hybrid system known as CONWIP not only has better service than a pure kanban system, but also solves certain implementation problems.