Deconstructing bottleneck shiftiness : the impact of the bottleneck position on order release control in pure flow shops

Thurer, Matthias and Qu, Ting and Stevenson, Mark and Huang, George and Li, Cong Dong (2017) Deconstructing bottleneck shiftiness : the impact of the bottleneck position on order release control in pure flow shops. Production Planning and Control, 28 (15). pp. 1223-1235. ISSN 0953-7287

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Abstract

Bottleneck shiftiness is an important managerial problem that negatively affects shop floor manageability. It has therefore received much research attention. Yet research has focused on how protective capacity can be used to influence bottleneck shiftiness rather than on assessing its operational impact. The latter is complex to evaluate since changing the degree of bottleneck shiftiness influences utilization, which makes the results of different experimental settings non-comparable. To overcome this problem, we take a different approach. Bottleneck shiftiness is decomposed by investigating its underlying phenomenon: the impact of the bottleneck position. Using simulation, we demonstrate that tighter control can be exercised, and better performance achieved, the further upstream the bottleneck is positioned. It is consequently important to be aware of the direction of the bottleneck shift. If the bottleneck shifts upstream, performance is likely to improve rather than deteriorate as is implicitly assumed in the literature.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Production Planning and Control
Additional Information:
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Production Planning and Control on 08/08/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09537287.2017.1362486
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1400/1408
Subjects:
?? bottleneck analysisdrum-buffer-ropeconstant work-in-process (conwip)workload controlbottleneck positionstrategy and managementmanagement science and operations researchindustrial and manufacturing engineeringcomputer science applications ??
ID Code:
87291
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
08 Aug 2017 08:26
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
22 Nov 2023 00:32