Track: Production Planning and Management

Abstract

Many Manufacturing Flow Control Techniques (MFCTs) have been proposed, and selecting an appropriate one to implement can be challenging. Comparing their performances could also be tricky because, by design, many are not likely to perform similarly under different conditions. This work aggregates and maps the MFCTs to a standard planning and control artefact to provide guidance on selection and implementation of the techniques. It builds on a previously published work. The hermeneutics double loop review procedure with snowballing approach was the overarching method, initiated using partial umbrella review. The product-process matrix was used as the basis for alignment of the MFCTs to the manufacturing processes.

MFCTs were summarised into a few groups using the characteristics of the production system, products and demand pattern. Mapping the groups to the product-process matrix enhances the selection of appropriate control techniques for a manufacturing environment. It also helps in anticipating the performance of the techniques under specified manufacturing conditions. Leading MFCTs and their notable variations considered to be reasonably representative of others were selected based on literature. All variants were grouped using characteristics considered important from literature. There may be some other ways of creating the groups.

The only work known to have linked the MFCTs to processes was published in 1989, and there has been many new techniques and variants of existing ones since then. This work expands on this foundation to provide a more comprehensive mapping, thereby helping researchers and practitioners to achieve a more structured implementation of the techniques and compare their performances.