Some Comparative and Design Aspects of Series Production Systems

Abstract This paper presents a brief critical review and a comparative study of some design aspects of the series production systems with a special emphasis on the design of buffer stocks. These aspects include paced and unpaced production flow lines, fixed cycle production (serial and sequential lines), allocation and capacity design of buffers, effect of variable operation times, the effect of unbalancing (bowl phenomenon), etc. Some of the results and discussions used in this paper have been adopted from available sources, and the rest have been compiled and/or calculated from the recent literature as mentioned therein. A general conclusion is made to the salient issues prevailing in the design of production systems.