Guideline to decide Safety stock for Number of Kanban & Kanban quantity: A Review & Methodology

Lean manufacturing has been the buzzword in the area of manufacturing for past few years especially in Japan. The Kanban system is one of the manufacturing strategies for lean production with minimal inventory and reduced costs. Kanban system is essential in ensuring success of Just in time practice and to create smooth flow throughout manufacturing system. Kanban system mainly deals with smoothing production schedule. Number of kanban and kanban quantity are the main design parameters of kanban system. It is important to state that there is a significant relationship between the design parameters of kanban system such as the number of kanbans, kanban quantity and factor of safety i.e safety stock. Safety stock is important parameter which is responsible for deciding number of kanban and kanban quantity. Kanban system requires more elaboration and fine tunning under different conditions where demand may be variable, setup time may be high and system may be balanced. The paper reviews various literatures and forms methodology for deciding safety stock for number of kanban and kanban quantity which will be useful for research in current field.