ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the methods to calculate the lean buffer capacities (LBC) necessary and sufficient to achieve the desired line throughput in asynchronous serial lines and assembly systems. It presents iterative methods for selecting lean buffers that guarantee the desired throughput. The method significantly reduce the computation time as comparing to full search and can closely reach the smallest buffer capacity. Therefore, it provides a quantitative tool for line designers and production engineers. Based on a closed formula to calculate lower bound and a bottleneck-based iterative approach, such buffers can be designed efficiently. The chapter provides the production line designers and engineers a quantitative tool for production system design and improvement. The futurework can be directed to study lean buffers in systems with more complicated structures, such as lines with rework loop, parallel lanes and re-entrant operations and the asynchronous lines with non-exponential machine up- and downtimes.
