A comparison of production control systems in a flexible flow shop

Abstract

Production control in make-to-order must address the companies’ need for short delivery times and on-time deliveries. Several production control systems may be used to meet these needs. This paper presents a simulation study to evaluate the delivery performance of the TKS, GKS and POLCA production co ntrol systems, in the context of a make-to-order flexible flow shop. Since TKS is used for make-to-stock manufacturing, an adaptation of it is made to use in make-to-order. Results of a simulation study show that the adapted TKS outperforms POLCA, but performs worse than GKS. The study is a contribution for the alignment of production control theory to the industrial practice.