Comparison of DBR with CONWIP in an unbalanced production line with three stations
研究了DBR和CONWIP两种生产控制方法在三站非平衡串联生产线中的表现，通过连续马尔可夫模型和优化分析发现DBR优于CONWIP。
The recently developed alternatives to traditional production planning and control systems such as material requirement planning (MRP) and Kanban are the drum–buffer–rope (DBR) and CONWIP (CONstant Work In Process) systems. Each system is best described as a combination push (like an MRP)/pull (like a Kanban) logistical procedure. Materials are pulled into the shop via the appropriate logic, and once released, materials are then pushed to subsequent workcentres. The performance of the DBR and CONWIP control policies are analysed and compared in a three-stage unbalanced tandem production line. Using a continuous Markov process model, steady-state probability distributions for the systems are derived, and then the performance measures of the systems can be evaluated. To compare the two systems, an optimization model for each system is proposed. From sensitivity analyses for the optimization models, the proposed models are validated, the differences of the two systems are investigated, and it is found that DBR is better than CONWIP under the proposed performance measures.