ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the application of basic control mechanism, design requirements, and other constant work-in-process (CONWIP) like control mechanisms. It discusses CONWIP and other push/pull integrated control policies. The chapter provides a classification for the literature in terms of considered parameters, and describes future research directions based on this classification. It also discusses the related design requirements and their combined effects on performance measures. The chapter also describes the hybrid CONWIP control mechanisms and the application environment. The basic CONWIP production control was proposed by M. Spearman. A. M. Bonvik and S. B. Gershwin proposed a release mechanism, which is based on Kanban and CONWIP principles, to avoid machine blocking. The existence of shifting bottlenecks, that is, bottlenecks that change overtime due to different product types and breakdowns, makes CONWIP application difficult. The chapter explains the CONWIP design issues such as card type, number of cards, backlog list, and lot size.
