Controlling just-in-sequence flow-production
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Controlling just-in-sequence flow-production Sebastian Meissner
Received: 16 February 2010 / Accepted: 9 March 2010 / Published online: 10 April 2010 Springer-Verlag 2010
Abstract Analyses of the customer-order process in the automotive industry show that the vision of perfectly synchronized material flows in complex industrial production and logistics environments is still far from having become reality. The traditional strategy of maintaining high safety stock levels to counter the effects of ever more variety and uncertainty in the customer demand leads to unbearable cost in today’s competitive markets. Moreover, the responsiveness in the complex supply networks remains low. Thus, the goals of short order lead-times and on-time deliveries to customers are often missed. This places urgency onto the implementation of highly flexible logistics and production systems. The concept of just-insequence flow-production promises to allow for both accommodating rising degrees of product variety and cost efficiency. However, its success is dependent on reliable logistics and the ability to avoid turbulences within the material flows. Thus, it needs control of the stability of order sequences and intelligent strategies to hedge against any disturbances that cannot be proactively removed in the production flow. This paper suggests the introduction of systematic key performance indicators to make process instability transparent and manageable. Based on that, dimensioning methods for hedging against inherent sequence instability of production processes by means of physical or virtual re-sequencing are presented.
This paper has been invited for publication in LOGISTICS RESEARCH. It was the winner of the 2009 ‘‘Science Award’’ by the Federal Logistics Association (BVL) of Germany. S. Meissner (&) Munich, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
Keywords Automotive production Flow-production Stable order sequence Just-in-sequence Production control
1 The challenge of turbulence in industrial production For the largest part of the European automotive industry, meeting highly specific customer demands by product and service differentiation has become the key strategy for success in increasingly competitive world markets [4]. To meet the goal of high customer satisfaction—especially in the premium segments of the automobile markets—product individualization and logistical capabilities take the center stage. Most automobile producers (original equipment manufacturer, OEM) have implemented a built-to-order strategy to meet the demand for product variety [6, 10], following the mass-customization approach [1, 3]. Critical success factor is the logistical ability of supplying the required component variants just-in-time, as well as the ability to cope with turbulent market development and fluctuating demand, i.e. organizing flexible, highly responsive workflows without compromising delivery reliability and the efficiency of value-adding processes [16]. This results in the requirements for predictable and short o
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