An adaptive approach to controlling kanban systems

This paper introduces a new adaptive kanban-type pull control mechanism which determines when to release or reorder raw parts based on customer demands, inventory and backorders. This system differs from the traditional kanban system in that the number of kanban cards is allowed to change with respect to the inventory and backorder levels. However, the number of cards in the system remains limited, thereby restricting the amount of work-in-process (WIP) in the system. In this paper, we show how to evaluate the performance of this system for the case of a single-stage, single-product kanban system where the demands arrive according to a Poisson process and processing times are exponential random variables. We show that our adaptive system under such conditions can outperform the traditional kanban pull control mechanism while remaining easy to implement. In addition, we present simulation results and show the benefits of this system under variable demand means. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.