We consider a firm that manages its internal manufacturing operations according to a just-in-time (JIT) system but maintains an inventory of finished goods as a buffer against random demands from external customers. We formulate a model in which finished goods are replenished by a small fixed quantity each time period. In the interest of schedule stability, the size of the replenishment quantit...

Lean manufacturing has been widely adopted by many production companies. Apart from the operational difficulty associated with conversion from a traditional, functional based operation, adoption of Lean manufacturing involves significant organizational transformations. It requires formation of work teams, comprised of multi-skilled workers. The work teams are preferably self directed and need t...

Lebanese industries are growing so fast and expanding their businesses while managing their time, inventory, labor, quality and other production factors in order to increase productivity and output while reducing waste. For that, lean manufacturing aims to reduce the inventory and gain more profits while getting a better quality of the goods delivered to the customers. The aim of this Article i...

Lean production (or lean management respectively) gained popularity in several waves. The last three decades have been filled with numerous attempts to apply these concepts in companies. However, this has only been partially successful. The roots of lean production can be traced back to Toyota’s just-in-time production. This concept, which according to Womack’s, Jones’ and Roos’ research at MIT...

When purchased components for an assembly manufacturing operation are replenished Just-In-Time the investment in inventory holding of these components is eliminated, but usually with increased fixed reorder cost. It is therefore important in the pursuit of high returns on inventory investment to know for which components JIT replenishment is an optimal policy. In this paper we describe two deci...

This paper concerns the modeling of low inventory lines. Currently, most models assume that processing times are independent. We consider the differences in behavior of workers in lowand high-inventory production lines. Using a laboratory experiment we show that workers speed up when they are the cause of idle time on the line. This means that processing time distributions are not independent o...

Recently Just-In-Time (JIT) production has attracted increasing interest throughout the Chinese manufacturing industries and its programs have been widely implemented. Currently, there are few studies conducted about JIT manufacturing implemented by small manufacturing firms in China, even though small firms are still dominant in many areas of manufacturing industries in China. This study analy...

This paper implements the inventory model developed in the first part of this paper in a simplified problem to simultaneously reduce costs and risks in JIT systems. This model is developed to ascertain an optimal ordering strategy for procuring raw materials by using regular multi-external and local backup suppliers to reduce the total cost of the products, and at the same time to reduce the ri...

In this paper, we deal with a supply chain in which an assembler orders parts from a supplier. The assembler decides both order size and lead time for the supplier. In response, the supplier will determine its production capacity to fulfill the order from the assembler. Compared with the case where the assembler and the supplier maximize their own individual profits, the supply chain coordinati...