Title: Implementation of kanban to improve efficiency of a manufacturing system subject to bottlenecks

Authors: D. Sudarsan; G.D. Sivakumar

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, P.S.N.A. College of Engineering and Technology, Dindigul, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sethu Institute of Technology, Kariapatti, India

Abstract: The strategy of a kanban is to optimise the inventory level by minimising the inventory holding cost and the back order level. The number of kanbans determines the total inventory has been used for manufacturing. A bi-criteria objective performance consisting of weighted tardiness and weighted work-in-process has been utilised for assessment. The bottleneck is a hurdle to reaching the objective. The major role of the projected paper is evolving the model to enhance kanban system in a product manufacturing industry by various optimisation methods by considering the hurdles due to bottleneck operation. These industrialised models can be used to enhance the system by minimising the tardiness and work in progress cost in the flow of product at the restricted access point with kanban production scheme. From the solutions attained, the optimal kanban size with minimum tardiness and WIP cost is identified by harmony search (HS) optimisation algorithm.

Keywords: kanban process; bottleneck analysis; product manufacturing; industry; optimisation techniques.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2020.109366

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2020 Vol.34 No.5, pp.467 - 480

Received: 31 Mar 2017
Accepted: 29 May 2017
Published online: 04 Sep 2020 *

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