Decision Sciences Journal
Volume 29, Number 4
Fall 1998
Lot Splitting in Unbalanced Production Systems
Robert A. Ruben
Department of Management, New Mexico Institute of Mining and
Technology, Socorro, NM 87801, email: ruben@nmt.edu
Farzad Mahmoodi
School of Business, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699-5775,
email: mahmoodi@clarkson.edu
ABSTRACT. This research investigates the impact of
lot splitting in unbalanced production systems, under a variety
of experimental conditions. Scheduling policies specifically
designed for use in the presence of a long-term bottleneck, a
condition frequently encountered in practice, are developed and
tested. Results indicate that when steps are taken at nonbottleneck
work centers to capitalize on capacity imbalances through increasing
the number of setups and, hence, the variety of products produced,
shop effectiveness is improved. The results also indicate that
scheduling policies that tend to increase the size of the average
process batch retard the overlapping of operations, which is
critical to the success of the lot-splitting methodology in reducing
flow time. Finally, it is shown that increasing capacity at nonbottleneck
work centers along with implementation of effectiveness-oriented
scheduling polices leads to improved shop performance.
Subject Areas: Lot Splitting, Machine Scheduling and
Sequencing, Optimized Production Technology, Simulation, and
Unbalanced Production Systems. |