Bridging lean to agile production logistics using autonomous carriers in pull flow

Abstract

Since the early 90s the lean manufacturing system has become popular for industries. Following that, agility in production has received great attention. Exploration of any new techniques for bringing these strategic concepts closer to each other has become advantageous for pioneer industries. Accordingly, the new paradigm of individual control, with the progressive interpretation of ‘autonomy’, can contribute to the objectives of the lean and the agile concepts in production and logistics environments. To explain the contributions of the addressed thesis the study describes it in theoretical and empirical forms. The compatibility of these leading-edge concepts to realise the notion of continuous material flow through supply chains and production floors is examined. Simultaneously, the factors of efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness are considered. This study covers a quick review on the lean and agility techniques and highlights some specific contributions of autonomous control to their targets. The purpose is to clarify the role of the autonomy in compliance with the lean and agility goals. This is inspected through development of a discrete event simulation with some scenarios in a supply network.

Keywords:

• supply network
• lean and agile production
• Conwip
• autonomous control
• fuzzy logic