Managing lean DRC systems with demand uncertainty: an analytical approach

This paper considers a dual resource constrained manufacturing system with identical parallel work cells, which operates in an environment with demand uncertainty. The system is evaluated under the principles of lean manufacturing: zero lead times, zero inventories, and zero defects. The study shows that group-dispatching rules and labor assignment policies have a significant impact on manufacturing productivity. By properly managing the changeover-per-unit output ratios and operator assignments, the available capacity for value adding activities is increased and manufacturing cost is reduced. Results of an experiment show that labor requirements can be reduced from 5% to 46% and, machine utilization can be reduced from 2% to 14%.