A Unified Framework for Describing the Dynamics of Pull Control Policies with Batch Production

Authors:	Di Mascolo Maria, Laboratoire d'Automatique de Grenoble, France Bollon Jean Marc, Laboratoire d'Automatique de Grenoble, France
Topic:	5.1 Manufacturing Plant Control
Session:	Plant-wide Production Planning and Control Issues
Keywords:	production/inventory systems, pull control policies, (min,+) algebra, queueing systems, batch production

Abstract

This paper presents a unified framework that enables to expressthe dynamics of pull control policies with the same set ofcanonical functions. This canonical formulation allows to identifyunder what parameter values two different policies have the samedynamics behavior. It applies to many pull control policies, andalso to manufacturing systems producing batches. A computationalalgorithm that enables to calculate efficiently the parameters ofthe canonical formulation for each policy is derived. Thisalgorithm relies on the use of (min,+) algebra tools.