Modulize Pull Production System Kanban Management Disquisition

In the competitive Chinese automobile market, how to eliminate the waste in production, reduce the unnecessary stock, and enhance the flexibility to meet the customer demands, have been a hot topic in the enterprise top management. All enterprises either employing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system or the using Toyota Production System (TPS) are seeking the proper business solutions to reach their goal to be a winner in today's global marketplace. Either business solutions were originally developed from the developed countries. However, the ERP applications in China are still at the early stage and cannot get its expected benefits due to many factors, for example, the management, IT and data systems. On the other hand, very few enterprises are starting to use TPS for business and production manufacturing. Based on such situation, the objectives of this dissertation are to investigate and analyze the merits and demerits of these two solutions from practical application point of view. To make this study more realistic, based on author's working experience, an auto wire harness manufacturer was selected as a benchmark production system in this study. This production system consists of three main processes, namely, cutting,wire harness assembly and final test. The studies focus on system modeling, simulation and the integration of ERP and KanBan management systems. The pull production Kanban management is performed in terms of a ERP oriented production forecast.In Chapter 2, the dissertation will introduce the development history of MRP—MRPII—ERP. As the representative of the traditional production system, namely, the push-type production systems that is not applicable in the enterprise management for Chinese enterprises. On the other hand, also analysis TPS developed from production practice. As a representative of the pull-type production system that may produce right products with desired quantity at right time and right location. Via the KanBan card flow carrying the material information inside the workstations, the control of production depends on the latter process not from any specific individual.The comparisons of the specifications and advantages of both push-type production system and pull-type production system are addressed in details. Based on the comparisons, we found that utilizing the pull-type production system will help to control the right stock, make the production under control and orderly by making the ERP system to be used by the forecast tool. The reasonable combination of ERP and KanBan management may solve the problem faced by many manufactory companies.Since there are almost no companies in China have been finished with pull-type production system, the dissertation will emphasis on how to develop and implement the pull-type production system integrated with KanBan management. Chapter 3 begins with analyzing production flow and process characters, and then based on the feasibility study and the fundamental of KanBan management system, define the main research objectives, develop production model, choose pull-type production management model and develop the calculation model to determine the required number of KanBan cards for those important production cells. Consequently, we can get the right number of KanBan cards to meet the customer needs. The solutions involve the analysis and decision support for employee workforce, production capacity, U style cell, takt time, component flow, stock structure at the end of cell, changeover time, customer demands, etc. In order to maximize the profit margin through increasing machine utilization, reduction in cycle time and inventory cost.After achieving the elementary objectives, the dissertation further explores its optimization measures. In Chapter 4, the studies focus on how to reduce the amount of KanBan cards in cells, because it will result in the deduction of the stocks at the end of workstations in a production line. Through the simulation studies of the KanBan model by Matlab software, we can get the quantities relationships between the key factors and the amount of KanBan cards to be needed with optimization concept. Chapter 5 presents the qualitative optimization exploration to get the improvement direction by analysis of the advanced pull-type production model, logistic pulling as well as the backward production line pulling.In summary, the dissertation begins with a brief survey for production management. And then the problem statement, production system modeling, methodical analysis, simulation experiment, production practice, optimization exploration are illustrated. Finally, hope the results provided by this dissertation may be referred by manufacturing enterprises to improve their business performance.