Demand Flow Institute, LLC

John Costanza Institute of Technology

Jit Institute of Technology, Inc.

John R Costanza

A material flow design system for a mixed-model demand flow manufacturing line is presented. The material flow system utilizes a replenishment card/replenishment container system of material management. The material flow design system defines the size of replenishment containers and the location of material deduct points in the production path. The material flow design system may further include a design system for designing an inventory control system. The inventory control system involves locating backflush and intermediate backflush locations on the production path and deduct points in the material flow sequence. An inventory monitoring system monitors material flow, deducts material from inventories at deduct points, and credits material to inventory indicated by the deduct points when products produced by the manufacturing line flow through material backflush points defined in the manufacturing line.

Material and inventory control system for a demand flow process

A demand-driven, mixed-model manufacturing line design system utilizes Demand Flow Technology to design an efficient mixed-model manufacturing line. Concurrent manufacture of several products in a continuous flow, mixed-model product line designed utilizing the design system exhibits essentially none of the inefficiencies associated with mixed-model, batch-oriented manufacturing lines. The method according to the present invention includes a product synchronization step for synchronizing product flow between unit processes, a resource balancing step to ensure sufficient resources are provided at each process, thereby reducing the product cycle time at each process to be approximately equal to an operational cycle time calculated for each process, a cell definition step for consolidating constant volume processes, an operational definition step for grouping tasks associated with the consolidated processes within each cell, and an operation balancing step for defining additional cells based on actual product cycle time diversity. A design system according to this invention includes a computer system wherein machine readable code accessible to the computer system enables execution of the above described method.

System and method for designing a mixed-model manufacturing process

A system that determines the total demand for a product for each day over four time periods specified by the user of the system. Within the first time period, from the current date up to a demand fence, the total demand cannot be altered. For the next three periods, called the flex fence periods, the total demand for each day can vary by a percentage amount set by the user. If an order exceeding capacity is received for a date beyond the demand fence, the system will recalculate total demand for all days beyond the demand fence and prior to the order date to attempt to produce the total demand quantity necessary to fulfill the order. In calculating the increased quantities, the system uses a formula that prevents the total demand quantity for any day from exceeding the amount of material that was ordered for that day.

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Parker, CO, United States of America

John R Costanza