Abstract
The two-card kanban-controlled line can be viewed as a generalization of the tandem queue. Many of the kanban systems described in the production literature, and used in practice, are equivalent to a tandem queue. This paper shows when tandem queues can be used to obtain the performance measures of two-card systems. Results from a simulation study show that the tandem queue serves as an upper bound for more general two-card systems. The practical significance of this is that a tandem queue approximation can be used to find the minimum number of kanbans required to achieve a desired production rate.
Keywords

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