Manufacturing lead time shortening and stabilisation by means of workload control: an action research and a new method

This paper stems from an improvement project carried out at a men's outwear manufacturer, aimed at reducing and stabilising the production lead time (LT). A method has been developed that builds on three well-established operations management theories: Little's law, the workload control method and the logistic operating curves. In the action research study, by setting the system's work in process to a level more consistent with its operating curves, the average system LT was reduced by 34% while its coefficient of variation was reduced to one-third. On the grounds of these encouraging results, and given the good fit between empirical results and theoretical expectations, the method is standardised and proposed for general use in the analysis and improvement of manufacturing systems.