THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS

DRUM BUFFER ROPE

Presented to:
Mr. Nalin Kumar

Presented By:
Anjali Priya Apoorva Choudhary Seerat Hora Sonali Srivastava

National Institute of Fashion Technology, Gandhinagar

Theory of Constraints
The Theory of Constraints is an organizational change method that is focused on profit improvement. The essential concept of TOC is that every organization must have at least one constraint i.e. any factor that limits the organization from getting more of whatever it strives for, which is usually profit.

ToC can be used to increase throughput(sales), reliability and quality while decreasing inventory, lead time, WIP, late deliveries and overtime.

The crucial insight of ToC is that only a few elements (constraints) in a business control the financial results of the entire company. ToC tools identify these constraints, and focus the entire organization on simple, effective solutions to problems that seem complex and unsolvable.
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The Five Focusing Steps of the ToC

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The Five Focusing Steps of the ToC

1. Identify the System Constraint: In this step the part of a system that constitutes its weakest link is identified.
2. Decide How to Exploit the Constraint: This steps aims to obtain as much capability as possible from a constraining component, without undergoing expensive changes or upgrades. An example is to reduce or eliminate the downtime of bottleneck operations.

3. Subordinate Everything Else: The non-constraint components of the system must be adjusted to a "setting" that enable the constraint to operate at maximum effectiveness. Once this has been done, the overall system is evaluated to determine if the constraint has shifted to another component. If the constraint has been eliminated, the change agent jumps to step five. 4. Elevate the Constraint: "Elevating" the constraint refers to taking whatever action is necessary to eliminate the constraint. This step is only considered if steps two and three have not been successful. Major changes to the existing system are considered at this step.
5. Return to Step One, But Beware of "Inertia"
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Theory of Constraints- Example

Process B is the weakest link. Process B produces the least at only six units per day . Process A and C are the non-constraints.

Imagine that the manufacturer improves process B until it can produce 18 units per day. Now, process C becomes the system constraint while the non-constraints are everywhere else. If process improvements continue until all processes are producing 18 units/day or higher, the system constraint becomes the marketplace, which can accept only 15 units per day.
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The Thinking Processes

The Thinking Processes are optimized for complex systems with many interdependencies (e.g. manufacturing lines). They are designed as scientific cause and effect tools, which strive to first identify the root causes of undesirable effects (referred to as UDEs), and then remove the UDEs without creating new ones. The Thinking Processes are used to answer the following three questions, which are essential to TOC: 1. What needs to be changed?

2. What should it be changed to?

3. What actions will cause the change?

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Theory of Constraint Tools

TOOL Current Reality Tree ROLE Documents the current state. DESCRIPTION Diagram that shows the current state, which is unsatisfactory and needs improvement. When creating the diagram, UDEs (symptoms of the problem) are identified and traced back to their root cause (the underlying problem).

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Theory of Constraint Tools

TOOL Evaporating Cloud Tree ROLE Evaluates improvements. DESCRIPTION potential Diagram that helps to identify specific changes (called injections) that eliminate UDEs. It is particularly useful for resolving conflicts between different approaches to solving a problem. It is used as part of the process for progressing from the Current Reality Tree to the Future Reality Tree

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Theory of Constraint Tools

TOOL Future Reality Tree ROLE Documents the future state. DESCRIPTION Diagram that shows the future state, which reflects the results of injecting changes into the system that are designed to eliminate UDEs.

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Theory of Constraint Tools

TOOL Strategy and Tactics Tree ROLE DESCRIPTION

Provides an action plan for Diagram that shows an improvement. implementation plan for achieving the future state. Creates a logical structure that organizes knowledge and derives tactics from strategy.

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Benefits of Theory of Constraints

Increased profit

Fast improvement (a result of focusing all attention on one critical area the system constraint)
Improved capacity (optimizing the constraint enables more product to be manufactured) Reduced lead times (optimizing the constraint results in smoother and faster product flow) Reduced inventory (eliminating bottlenecks means there will be less work-in-process)

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What is Drum Buffer Rope?

Drum Buffer Rope (DBR) is a planning and scheduling solution derived from the Theory of Constraints.

The DBR system is a finite scheduling mechanism that balances the flow of the system. DBR controls the flow of materials through the plant in order to produce products in accordance with market demand with a minimum of manufacturing lead time, inventory and operating expense.

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What is Drum Buffer Rope?

The fundamental assumption of DBR is that within any plant there is one or a limited number of scarce resources which control the overall output of that plant. This is the drum, which sets the pace for all other resources. In order to maximize the output of the system, planning and execution behaviors are focused on exploiting the drum, protecting it against disruption through the use of time buffers, and synchronizing or subordinating all other resources and decisions to the activity of the drum through a mechanism that is akin to a rope.

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Drum Buffer Rope

The rate at which the constraint resource is able to process. A correctly set 'drum beat' will ensure that the constraint resource always has just the right amount of work neither too little nor too much - to process.

DRUM

BUFFER

The buffer is a period of time to protect the drum resource from problems that occur upstream from the drum operation. DBR Buffers are measured in time rather than quantity of material and ensure that process flow is prioritized according to the time.

ROPE

This is an information 'link' from the Drum to the raw material release schedule, so that the constraint is always kept supplied with just the right amount of work.

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The Scheduling Problem

When one looks at the load versus capacity, one must look at each resource individually. The aggregate view of, for example, 1000 hours available in the factory versus 880 hours of demand doesnt adequately describe the situation. In figure , we see that most work centers have extra capacity, while work center 3 is fully loaded and cannot accept more work. The true state of this plant is that it is full and cannot accept more work that involves WC3.
Capacity Demand

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The Scheduling Problem contd..

In addition, we must consider the time frame in which the demand occurs. A monthly or weekly aggregate view of demand may not be sufficient to take action and deliver work on time.

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The Scheduling Problem contd..

To solve this problem, most systems will offset by some standard fixed lead time, but all that does is move the peak over. Forward scheduling algorithms will not see the peak until its too late. The peak demand must be moved to open capacity. If we ignore peak demands, we will have expediting, overtime, additional WIP, late deliveries because capacity may not be available when needed. This will have negative effect on system throughput, due date performance, and lead times.
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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution

The process of delivering a product or service is very much like a chain; each resource and function are linked. It only takes one element in the system to fail, to cause the entire system to fail. In order to improve the system, we must optimize the weakest link; the constraint or drum. All other resources are subordinated to that. In scheduling terms, we:

1. Develop a detailed schedule for the drum resource

2. Add buffers to protect the performance of that resource 3. Synchronize the schedule of all other resources to the drum schedule
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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

Identify the systems constraint
The first step is to identify the drum. The drum is typically the most heavily loaded resource (or work center) in the plant.
Capacity Demand

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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

Exploit the constraint
40 hrs / week P1 demand 51 on day 5 50 on day 3 P2 demand 10 on days 1-5

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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

Once the drum has been identified, a detailed schedule is prepared to satisfy the customer requirements, resolving the peak loads.

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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

The impact on the non-constraints is to smooth out the load because their processes are connected to the constraint resource.

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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

The Buffer
The buffer compensates for process variation, and makes DBR schedules very stable. It has the additional effect of eliminating the need for 100% accurate data for scheduling. It allows the user to produce a good enough schedule that will generate superior results over almost every other scheduling method. Since the buffer aggregates variation, it also allows to operate the plant with much lower levels of work in process, producing dramatic reductions in production lead times and generating a lot of cash that was tied up on inventory. The extra capacity at the non-constraints helps, too. Since the plant is not overloaded with work it cannot do, the resources can catch up when problems strike, without affecting the drum or global throughput.
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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

Synchronize to the Drum Subordination: After the drum has been scheduled, material release and shipping are connected to it, using the buffer offset. Material is released at the same rate as the drum can consume it. Orders are shipped at the rate of drum production. DBR Scheduling Algorithm: The process of scheduling the factory first focuses on the primary objective of the facility, to ship to committed delivery date. Thus we first find the due date of the order, and add a shipping buffer to create an ideal finish date with confidence. From this planned finish date, the order is backward scheduled to identify an ideal time to work on the drum resource, a latest due by (LBD) date.
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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

All orders are scheduled to fit on the drum using two passes; first, by assigning all batches an ideal placement on the drum schedule.

oWhen the batch does not fit, i.e., there is another occupying its space, the batch is scheduled earlier in time so the order due date is not violated. This may result in some jobs starting before today, and not all jobs may be ready to start at the drum resource.

The drum is then forward scheduled to resolve these conflicts, and potentially late jobs are identified (the red batch).
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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

After the drum is schedule, the operations after the drum are scheduled forward in time from the drum completion date.

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The Drum Buffer Rope Solution contd..

Then, the jobs feeding the drum are backward scheduled from the start of the resource buffer.

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References
http://pinnacle-strategies.com/articles/DBR.pdf http://www.dbrmfg.co.nz/Production%20DBR.htm http://www.toc-lean.com/operations_dbr.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constraints http://www.lean.org/common/display/?o=223 http://www.leanproduction.com/theory-of-constraints.html

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