A production line that balances itself
成果类型：
Article; Proceedings Paper
署名作者：
Bartholdi, JJ; Eisenstein, DD
署名单位：
University of Chicago
刊物名称：
OPERATIONS RESEARCH
ISSN/ISSBN：
0030-364X
DOI：
10.1287/opre.44.1.21
发表日期：
1996
页码：
21-34
关键词：
摘要：
In ''bucket brigade'' manufacturing, such as recently introduced to the apparel industry, a production line has n workers moving among m stations, where each worker independently follows a simple rule that determines what to do next. Our analysis suggests and experiments confirm that if the workers are sequenced from slowest to fastest then, independently of the stations at which they begin, a stable partition of work will spontaneously emerge. Furthermore, the production rate will converge to a value that, for typical production lines, is the maximum possible among all ways of organizing the workers and stations.