Heuristics for scheduling in a Kanban system with dual blocking mechanisms

In this paper, the problem of scheduling in a Kanban system with dual blocking mechanisms is considered. These blocking mechanisms are due to part-type and queue size. For such a type of static Kanban system, recursive equations are formulated for timetabling of containers. Subsequently, two heuristics are proposed with the twin objectives of minimizing the total weighted waitingtime of containers and total weighted flowtime of part-types. The results of computational evaluation are presented and discussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.