Properties of serial kanban systems

Abstract

In this paper we show some structural results of a kanban system by using results about the underlying GSMP. The main results from this connection are: dominance of allocations, optimal partition, upper and lower bounds on throughput, consistency of the IPA derivative, convexity of throughput as a function of service time parameters and concavity of throughput with respect to number of kanbans. Although the dominance and the partition results were obtained previously by sample path arguments, the proofs here are less cumbersome and generalize the earlier results. The second-order properties for kanban lines are new. These results form a basis for results in multi-product lines where proofs by sample paths require extensive notation. © 1992 J.C. Baltzer A.G. Scientific Publishing Company.