A methodology for determining and controlling the buffers before floating bottlenecks in heavy machinery production

Abstract

Heavy machinery industry is characterized by a number of specifi c features that cause signifi cant variations in the processing time of products in the individual workplaces and frequent occurrence of fl oating bottlenecks, which change their positions. Depending on the product range being processed, a given workplace is the bottleneck only for some period of time. When the bottleneck moves to another workplace, it leads to unnecessary loss of capacity of the fl oating bottleneck. To maximize the utilization, it is necessary to protect those bottlenecks by creating special buff ers. The objective of this article is to design a methodology used for the determination and control of buff ers that are going to protect the fl oating bottlenecks from operating capacity losses caused by transfer of the constrain to another workplace. These buff ers are referred to as „power buff ers“. The designed methodology has been verifi ed in the process of forged pieces machining.