Research On TOC-based Production Control In High Mix And Low Volume Flow Manufacturing

JIT and other existing lean techniques achieved great success in the mass and repetitive production environment; however, they are proven difficult to apply in most Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). In order to apply lean production to the high-mix and low volume environment, this paper explores a new flow manufacturing model and researches its operation and control mechanism base on TOC.The research goes deep into the traditional methods and theories in order to develop a new control mode of flow manufacturing which can adapt to high-mix and low volume environment. The mode's objects focus on parts families according to which equipments are assigned and come into physical or logical flow path. But some equipment can be shared in different flow paths. Meanwhile the productions are organized individually according to the difference between commons and customizations. So both efficiency and flexibility are guaranteed.According to the traits of flow manufacturing in the high mix and low volume environment, the operation control mechanism of DBR is introduced to establish a new production framework based on the Theory of Constraints. The framework relies on the flow path management technology which can simplify and balance the material flow in plant, and make the control and management of the production process easy.Centered on the realization of new production model, this paper analyzes some steps and key techniques including division of the flow path, identification of bottlenecks, setting of buffer size and etc. The integration of related techniques enriches the operation control framework of flow manufacturing in high mix and low volume environment.Finally, a simulation study has been carried out and shows some advantages of this proposed new mode superior to some traditional ones. The paper also points out the problems and the direction of future research.