An Exact Model to Determine the Lead-Time Distribution of Perishable Goods in a Kanban-Controlled Production System

Abstract

In many production and logistics systems the lead-time distribution of the transported products and goods plays a major role for what concerns the system performances. In particular, when the sojourn time in a part of the supply chain exceeds the target range, some quality and rework costs may arise, for example in case of perishable goods. This paper presents an analytical model to exactly determine the lead-time distribution in closed loop systems and to compute the correspondent costs by means of discrete-time Markov chains.