Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

"Various researchers have extolled the benefits of Theory of Constraints (TOC), Just-in-Time (JIT), and other manufacturing strategies. Some supporters of JIT argue it is the least costly, while others point to the overall benefits of TOC. There are conflicting claims as to the best manufacturing philosophies which is compounded by the fact that no one system is best in every situation. The success of a production system truly depends on the manufacturing environment rather than the philosophy being used. This study uses computer simulations of differing manufacturing environments to compare Just-in-Time (JIT) and Theory of Constraints (TOC) philosophies over two response variables, make span and work-in-process (WIP).

Results showed significant differences favoring both TOC and JIT in different manufacturing environments with respect to both make span and work-in-process (WIP). The study showed evidence that both JIT and TOC are essentially the same when a production system has a bottleneck located at the last station. However, the performance of TOC could equal that of JIT with less inventory.

This supports the concept of strategic inventory use for the constrained resource in TOC over the JIT concept of having at least two Kanban cards at each workstation. Different process structures showed different performance for the two strategies used. The study suggested that higher setup and process variation did not have much effect on WIP level, but they did have a significant effect on the make span variable. In conclusion, the study proved that not one system is best in every condition. Each manufacturing environment will be best served by a unique manufacturing strategy"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Murray, Susan L.

Committee Member(s)

Wiebe, Henry Allen
Meinert, Timothy S.
Raper, Stephen A.
Samaranayake, V. A.
Fargher, John S. W., Jr.

Department(s)

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering

Degree Name

Ph. D. in Engineering Management

Publisher

University of Missouri--Rolla

Publication Date

Spring 2002

Pagination

xii, 123 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 111-122).

Rights

© 2002 Pirun Hemmondharop, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Just-in-time systems -- Evaluation
Theory of constraints (Management) -- Evaluation

Thesis Number

T 8025

Print OCLC #

51160067

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