Detecting bottlenecks in serial production lines - a focus on interdeparture time variance

Detecting bottlenecks in serial production lines - a focus on interdeparture time variance

This work addresses an important problem in industry - locating the bottleneck in a production line - and suggests a practical approach to accomplish that end. We describe and validate, using discrete event simulation, a novel method of bottleneck detection in open, asynchronous serial production li...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of production research Vol. 50; no. 15; pp. 4158 - 4174
Main Authors: Betterton, C.E., Silver, S.J.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis Group 01-08-2012
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis LLC
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Assembly lines
bottleneck detection
Bottlenecks
Buffers
Computer simulation
Construction equipment
discrete event simulation
Exact sciences and technology
interdeparture time
Mathematical analysis
Operational research and scientific management
Operational research. Management science
production improvement
Production lines
Reliability theory. Replacement problems
Serials
Simulation
Stations
Studies
throughput
Variance
Work in process
Bottleneck
Mass production
Asynchronous
On line
Production line
In-process inventory
Series system
Buffer system
Real time
interdeparture time
Modeling
Standards
Break up time
Asynchronism
bottleneck detection
production improvement
throughput
Localization
Repair
discrete event simulation
Discrete event system
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Description
Summary:This work addresses an important problem in industry - locating the bottleneck in a production line - and suggests a practical approach to accomplish that end. We describe and validate, using discrete event simulation, a novel method of bottleneck detection in open, asynchronous serial production lines with finite buffers. The technique uses a single measure - station interdeparture time variance - to locate the system bottleneck. The proposed method is compared to other bottleneck detection approaches and it is shown that the proposed method performs as well and sometimes better than other methods. We conclude that the proposed approach has a number of significant advantages. It is easy to use and implement, not requiring data about failure and repair times, raw process times, buffer sizes, etc., but instead uses a single piece of easily obtained real-time production line data - station work-in-process (WIP) interdeparture time. The proposed method can identify production constraints without the need to build an analytical or simulation model, is well suited for use in industry, and can be readily implemented in standard simulation tools.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0020-7543
1366-588X
DOI:10.1080/00207543.2011.596847