Dynamic card controlling in a Conwip system

Abstract The main parameter affecting the performance of pull systems (such as Kanban or Conwip) is the number of cards employed to control the release of the material. Therefore, establishing the correct number of cards in pull systems is an important issue that can be addressed either statically (i.e. card setting), or dynamically (i.e. card controlling). In this paper we focus on card controlling in Conwip systems. First, we review the different contributions regarding card controlling in pull systems. Then a new procedure is proposed and tested under different environments. The procedure shows to be competitive with respect to the existing ones. Finally, we compare card setting against employing the suggested procedure for card controlling.

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