Optimal Work-In-Process Inventory of Pull Type Manufacturing System

A pull type manufacturing system refers to a lean manufacturing model where the production of products is initiated by an organization that consumes those products. Pull type manufacturing system aims to allow manufacturers to much more readily deal with changes that need to be made to that inventory and avoid excess inventory. In this work, an approach integrating ordinal optimization with tree-seed algorithm is developed to look for the optimal work-in-process inventory such that the average lead time is minimized while ensuring an acceptable service level in a reasonable time. The developed approach comprises two stages. The first stage utilizes the tree-seed algorithm aided by a rough estimate to build a superb subset. The second stage determines an extraordinary design from the superb subset through the optimal computing budget allocation scheme. The developed approach is applied to a three-product pull type manufacturing system. Simulation results demonstrate that the superiority of the solution approach in computing efficiency and solution quality.