Open AccessTECHNICAL NOTE—Cellular Bucket Brigades
Author(s) -
Yun Fong Lim
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
operations research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.797
H-Index - 140
eISSN - 1526-5463
pISSN - 0030-364X
DOI - 10.1287/opre.1110.0958
Subject(s) - aisle , computer science , throughput , work (physics) , balance (ability) , production (economics) , simple (philosophy) , reduction (mathematics) , operations research , industrial engineering , economics , telecommunications , microeconomics , engineering , mechanical engineering , medicine , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , structural engineering , epistemology , wireless , physical medicine and rehabilitation
Workers in a bucket brigade production system perform unproductive travel when they walk to get more work from their colleagues. We introduce a new design of bucket brigades to reduce unproductive travel. Under the new design, each worker works on one side of an aisle when he proceeds in one direction and works on the other side when he proceeds in the reverse direction. We propose simple rules for workers to share work under the new design and find a sufficient condition for the system to self-balance. Numerical examples suggest that the improvement in throughput by the new design can be as large as 30%. Even with a 20% reduction in labor, the new design can still increase throughput by 7%.
Accelerating Research
Robert Robinson Avenue,
Oxford Science Park, Oxford
OX4 4GP, United Kingdom
Address
John Eccles HouseRobert Robinson Avenue,
Oxford Science Park, Oxford
OX4 4GP, United Kingdom