THROUGHPUT TIME REDUCTION: TAKING ONE'S MEDICINE

James D. Blocher; Richard W. Garrett; Roger W. Schmenner

doi:10.1111/j.1937-5956.1999.tb00313.x

THROUGHPUT TIME REDUCTION: TAKING ONE'S MEDICINE

James D. Blocher^1,2; Richard W. Garrett^3,1; Roger W. Schmenner^4,1,5

¹ Indiana University Bloomington · ² Issues Research · ³ Research Management (Norway) · ⁴ Hess (United States) · ⁵ Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

Production and Operations Management 1999

Managing throughput time and its relation to work‐in‐process (wip) inventory and customer service is the focus of this paper. This research combines theory, simulation results, and the analysis of corporate data in an effort to address the issues associated with how one company (Eli Lilly) managed a reduction in their throughput times and an improvement in their delivery reliability. The results for this company suggest that production control decisions—expediting and de‐expediting—can lead to a vicious circle of decisions, which in turn can lead to increased levels of WIP inventory and higher and more unpredictable throughput times.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1937-5956.1999.tb00313.x
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