Information and decision-making delays in MRP, KANBAN, and CONWIP

A production control system (PCS) can be considered an information-processing organization (IPO). The performance of different production control systems has been studied intensively. However, their decision-making efficiency has not drawn much attention. The amount of information in a production control system can lead to a delay in decision-making. This paper considers the effect of product position information on decision-making. We use information entropy to measure the amount of position information in products and find that there are different amounts of position information in MRP, KANBAN, and CONWIP. Then, we compare the decision-making time delay among the three production control systems across identical organizational structures for information processing. We conclude that the production control system with the smallest amount of information spends the least amount of time in decision-making.

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