Improving Performance of Process Flows
Chang-Sun Chin1 & Jeffrey S. Russell2
1Ph.D. Candidate, Construction Engineering and Management Program, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, [email protected]2Professor and Chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, [email protected]
Abstract
A process flow is a sequence of processes and stock points through which entities pass in sequence. At the level of a flow, the performance metrics related to overall system performance are throughput, cycle time and work-in-process. Understanding relationships between these metrics and flow behaviour is most important part to improve process flow performance and design high efficiency flows. A system can perform completely differently under different conditions. By comparing flow performance in a present state with those in theoretically possible states that a system can reach, we can determine whether a process flow is good or bad. The research defines process flow performance metrics as well as their relationships, and suggests a method to evaluate process flow performance using the flow metrics. The outcome will provide an internal benchmark of a process flow and different routes for process flow improvement.
Keywords
process flow, bottleneck rate, raw process time, critical WIP, practical worst case performance, internal benchmark
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Reference
Chin, C. & Russell, J. S. 2008. Improving Performance of Process Flows, 16th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction , 39-49. doi.org/
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