Abstract
Abstract An optimal design problem is considered for a man-machine system, where a group of numerically controlled (NC) machines is operated by a single worker. The processing time at each machine and the service time by the worker are assumed to be random variables. The decision variable is the number of machines in the group and the optimal criterion is minimize the cost for producting a product. We propose an approximation method for obtaining the optimal number. Some numerical example are presented to show that the obtained number of machines is identical with the exact number when the coefficients of variations for service time and processing time distributions are greater than √0.25 and √0.5, respectively, although the method is approximate.
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