Analysis of production resources improvement strategies in make-to-stock environments managed by the simplified drum-buffer-rope system

Humberto Govoni,Robson Flávio Castro,Fernando Bernardi De Souza,José De Souza Rodrigues,Silvio Roberto Ignacio Pires

doi:10.1590/1806-9649-2021v28e55

Humberto Govoni, Robson Flávio Castro + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9649-2021v28e55

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Abstract

Abstract: Theory of Constraints (TOC) states that every system has a single constraint that limits its performance, on which improvement efforts should be concentrated. This paper compared, through computer simulation, several methods of identifying the capacity-constrained resource in the perspective of a process of continuous improvement. Six make-to-stock (MTS) production line configurations managed by the Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope (S-DBR) system were simulated, in which six improvement methods were applied, three of them based on the TOC literature, and their performance measured and compared in terms of cycle time and order fill rate. The results showed that, in balanced systems, improvements spread over all resources allowed better results, because, in this case, it is necessary to improve everything to benefit the overall performance. In unbalanced environments, on the other hand, the three methods recommended by TOC, which recommend efforts concentrated on the weakest point of the system, achieved superior performance, with emphasis on the strategy based on the level of utilization. In addition to advancing the frontiers of knowledge in continuous improvement and TOC, the research results show that managers should focus their attention on the resource with the highest degree of utilization to get better and faster performance gains.

Highlights

In an increasingly competitive scenario, it is imperative that industrial organizations continually improve their manufacturing processes
In more than 50 years in which continuous improvement has been discussed by academics, several approaches have emerged from its implementation in organizations, such as Lean Manufacturing, focused on waste reduction (Womack et al, 1990); Six Sigma, which seeks to eliminate process variations (Pyzdek, 2003); and the Theory of Constraints (TOC), whose objective is to focus attention on the resources that restrict the flow of products or money generation (Goldratt & Cox, 2014)
The basic characteristic of TOC is to schedule production according to the pace of the constraint, protecting it from process variability with a certain amount of inventory, and ensuring that the rest of the plant works according to the constraint needs

Summary

Introduction

In an increasingly competitive scenario, it is imperative that industrial organizations continually improve their manufacturing processes. In this way, substantial efforts have been devoted to the research and practice of strategies, methods and technologies aimed at the improvement of production systems (Li et al, 2016). If the constraint is internal to the production system, it is said that there is a bottleneck, since the lack of capacity in one or more resources is the limiting factor for the company to generate more money. In other scenarios, this limitation may be in market demand, which suggests that there is excess capacity in the system resources

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