Stability of a `Signal Kanban' Manufacturing System

Signal kanban production control systems are often used in manufacturing systems with significant setup times where more conventional kanban systems are inappropriate. This paper analyzes signal kanban systems under demands with bounded fluctuation. It is shown that such systems are stable in the sense that cumulative demand at any time trails cumulative demand by no more than a constant. We determine a maximum time for which a queue of backorders can be nonempty, and present results for setting the signal kanban's reorder point such that the backorder queue is guaranteed to remain empty under the bounded demand fluctuation. The results are then extended to consider the case where product orders are serviced in a fixed sequence, and we determine a minimum buffer fill level to ensure no backorders will occur. Submitted to 1997 ACC 1 Introduction `Kanban' is an important production control technique used in "just-in-time" manufacturing or "lean manufacturing" [1]. In principle, a kan..