Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 1 (1995), Issue 3, Pages 225-243
doi:10.1155/S1024123X95000147

System-theoretic analysis of due-time performance in production systems

David Jacobs and Semyon M. Meerkov

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-2122, MI, USA

Received 5 January 1995

Copyright © 1995 David Jacobs and Semyon M. Meerkov. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Along with the average production rate, the due-time performance is an important characteristic of manufacturing systems. Unlike the production rate, the due-time performance has received relatively little attention in the literature, especially in the context of large volume production. This paper is devoted to this topic. Specifically, the notion of due-time performance is formalized as the probability that the number of parts produced during the shipping period reaches the required shipment size. This performance index is analyzed for both lean and mass manufacturing environments. In particular, it is shown that, to achieve a high due-time performance in a lean environment, the production system should be scheduled for a sufficiently small fraction of its average production rate. In mass production, due-time performance arbitrarily close to one can be achieved for any scheduling practice, up to the average production rate.