An Approximate Solution to Deterministic Kanban Systems

This paper presents a simple heuristic for computing the number of kanbans in a kanban system. The production systems under consideration have a multistage, uncapacitated, assembly tree structure, with every stage producing only one item at a time. The experimental results show that this method generates very good solutions. In more realistic problems where the master production schedule incorporates a smoothed demand, the solution found under the proposed method is identical to that of the linear programming approximation. This simple heuristic can be used in the real world to quickly determine the number of kanbans for daily just-in-time operations.