From the course: Constraint and Bottleneck Management
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Inventory management for maximum throughput
From the course: Constraint and Bottleneck Management
Inventory management for maximum throughput
- Buffers need to be planned. We need to plan where we allow a set quantity and type of inventory to accumulate principally to protect the constraints to operate at its maximum capacity. If you want to protect against all possible disruption, you will need an infinite sized buffer, not practical. So we have to deliberately choose how large an inventory buffer we want, say, just upstream of the constraints. This is a science on its own with several complex trade-offs. But as a strong starting point, it should be enough to protect from the majority of expected variation and disruption balance against the costs, and practicality of holding a larger quantity of work in progress inventory in the system. An extra angle to buffer management is what to do after the buffer is used. When an upstream disruption happens and the constraint uses up most of the buffer inventory. When normality resumes, that buffer now needs to be replenished and fast so that we get our protective buffer back quickly…
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