A Unified Flow Control Method for Loading, Routing, and Dispatching in Manufacturing Systems to Achieve Near-Zero Work-In-Process

We have developed a continuous flow (fluid) model for loading, routing, and dispatching of parts in a manufacturing system with several machines and part types. The resulting continuous control solution is used in a simple feedback scheme to determine the actual (discrete) loading, routing, and dispatching decisions. In several example where we applied this method, queues were reduced to nearly zero for demands that were very close to the capacity of the system.