CONWIP Redux: reflections on 30 years of development and implementation

Abstract

This work is a supplement to earlier literature reviews of research on the production control scheme known as CONWIP. In this paper, we chronicle the origins of CONWIP and address many of the issues and misunderstandings that have appeared over the past 30+ years.

KEYWORDS:

• CONWIP
• production control systems
• implementation
• WIP control
• Kanban

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Project Production Institute.

Notes on contributors

Mark L. Spearman

Mark L. Spearman’s research has been focused on understanding the basic principles that underlie manufacturing systems. In 2001, after 15 years in academia at Northwestern University and Georgia Tech, he founded Factory Physics, Inc., a firm that provides management consulting, training, and software to manufacturing firms. In 2019, FPI was acquired by Strategic Project Solutions and Spearman now applies Operations Science principles (a generalisation of Factory Physics) to improve the delivery of large capital construction projects. He is coauthor, with Wallace J. Hopp, of the book, Factory Physics that was named the IIE Book of the Year.

David L. Woodruff

David Woodruff earned his Ph.D. in industrial engineering and management sciences from Northwestern University. His current research primarily concerns computational aspects of optimisation under uncertainty. His research includes solution algorithms, problem representation and modelling language support. He has worked on applications in operations, logistics, science, and has been involved recently in a number of applications in electrical energy planning and scheduling. He is one of the developers of Pyomo, (www.pyomo.org) that won the INFORMS Computing Society prize in 2019 and an R&D 100 award in 2016.

Wallace J. Hopp

Wallace J. Hopp’s research focuses on the design, control and management of operations systems, with emphasis on manufacturing and supply chain systems, innovation processes, and health care systems. Hopp is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of IIE, INFORMS, MSOM, POMS and SME. He has served as President of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) and as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Management Science and is an active industry consultant, whose clients have included many Fortune 500 firms.