Technical note : Safety mechanisms in just‐in‐time systems

Safety stocks can be introduced in different ways in production and inventory control systems. The three basic types are physical safety stock, safety lead time, and hedging. Departing from the formula for calculating the number of kanbans , it is shown that all three approaches are implicitly incorporated in the kanban safety mechanism approach. Discusses the ways in which they appear as well as their appropriateness in a just‐in‐time production context.