Application And Research Of Pull Production System

In today's rapid development of economic globalization, the enterprises are faced with a rapid and unpredictable change in a buyer's market. This asks the enterprises to respond quickly to the ever-changing market and develop productions that meet the demands of users to capture market in order to win the competition. This requires the enterprises to produce in the light of the actual situation, based on the thought of Lean Production and status quo, and gradually achieve Lean Production through continuous improvement. A strategy of pulling production is one of the tools or ties to improve the situation.The core of pulling production is JIT production, and the target is to reduce costs, continually to improve and upgrade. It boosts various production processes to improve continuously through pulling production, which meets customer needs, and it gradually eliminates the ineffective production, reduces inventory reserves, lowers production costs, and thus achieves the requirements of Lean Production. Therefore, the design of pulling production becomes the most important improvement projects of many enterprises who want Lean Production.Though the study of Siemens VDO Automotive Chassis electronics sector, we realized the importance of implementation of pulling production. As a basis for the factory to implement lean production, it can reduce WIP inventory, and make some hidden problems of original production line expose, so as to solve these problems. During the investigation in the workshop, we implemented pulling production to improve a production line. Through knowing the production situation and understanding the needs of the customers, some objectives of improvement are established: 1) changing pushing production into pulling production. 2) In the circumstances to ensure that the production line will yield products, to reduce WIP inventory from 15 000 to about 5,000. 3) For the type little or no change in the day changing into six types.Among the improvements we found that the use of the existing pulling strategy to improve the production lines can not guarantee a good yield, the volume of WIP and type of products in line with the required improvements. After careful analysis and research of all aspects of production, we summed up a pulling strategy which suits this production line well. This is a new pull-type strategy, named KCB strategy. Figure 1 is a map about how the KCB pulling strategy operates in an N stages production. This new pulling strategy also includes production of other ideas, such as the DBR, etc. Practice proves that this is a very successful strategy for stimulating. Currently in this company, similar situations in the production of pull-type production line are applying this strategy to stimulate production.The only thing in producing practice that remains unchanged is the changes, therefore, for a production system, the ability of quickly adapting to change is necessary. Applying KCB new pulling strategy promotes production line from the previous pushing production into pulling production, and the enterprises change from the previous production process for none or one - or two types into one day six types. WIP Inventory is main indicator which could reflect in Lean production in enterprises. The use of the new strategy makes the largest WIP inventory 5000 and at least 0 during the producing process. From the result of the improvement, we can see the application of new pulling strategy achieves the goal of improvement.KCB pulling strategy applied to the existing three comprehensive pulling strategies, i.e. KANBAN, CONWIP and Base Stock Strategies. In the production process, transfer of materials between upstream and downstream processes relies on the KANBAN card; the CONWIP card is for the production instructions; and the production instructions of processes between the upstream and downstream is on Base Stock strategy to pull. The basic characteristic of the production system is the largest inventory of WIP is predetermined. The KANBAN card is only as a logistics transport signals rather than production signals and the production instructions are directed by CONWIP card to complete. In practical application, in circumstances to ensure the basic characteristics of the KCB strategy, we have some ways to operate and manage easily, such as to simplify the cards used in this system, to design the cards combined with different types of functions, to use KANBAN card added time marker instead of CONWIP card to issue production orders.In the production practice process, the pulling production system is built up gradually. So it can also use three basic strategies for improving gradually to complete the establishment of KCB pulling production systems, the reasons are as follows: 1) When the number of billboards and the customer demand is infinite, it is Base Stock pulling Strategy. 2) When the billboards for infinite and the basic inventory are only set in the end of the production line, it is CONWIP pull strategy. 3) When the demand of customers is infinite, and the basic inventory number is as same as the billboards number, it is KANBAN pulling strategy. The opposite is how to change the basic pulling strategy into KCB strategy, which also provides the enterprises a guideline to design pulling production.KCB to pull strategy is a great change. Compared to other production systems, it has great advantages in terms of the merits. As a new pulling strategy it gives the number of its internal relations and the constrained relations among production units, and it will be a great helper to the staff who will design pulling production system. So this paper has done in this area of work to provide a mathematical support for the application of this production system.At last, ARENA software is applied to simulate the production line. Though simulating production system which uses KCB pulling production strategy, it shows the simulated output of the yield and the number of products. The data of using simulation software shows that the new pulling strategy of production system tallies to the design requirements, which once again proved that the new strategy is a success.