We compared a CONWIP(constant work-in-process) system with a kanban system in a production line with constant processing times. Based on the observation that a WIP-controlled line production system such as CONWIP and kanban is equivalent to a m-node tandem queue with finite buffer, we applied a max-plus algebra based solution method for the tandem queue to evaluate the performance of two systems. Numerical examples with 6 workstations were used to demonstrate the proposed analysis. The numerical results support the previous studies that CONWIP outperforms kanban in terms of expected waiting time and WIP. Unlike the kanban case, sequencing workstations in a CONWIP does not affect the performance of the system.