Abstract
An approximation method based on discrete state Markov chain is developed to estimate the production rate of a series-parallel flow line with finite buffers. The proposed method's technique replaces a set of parallel machines at a work centre with an equivalent machine in order to obtain a traditional flow line with work centres in series separated by intermediate buffers. We derive equations for the parameters of the equivalent machine when it operates in isolation as well as in flow line. The few published analytical methods for series-parallel systems can tract only lines with a maximum of two work centres in series and a buffer in between them. Moreover, they are limited to estimate performance measures of flow lines composed only of identical machines in parallel. The proposed method, however, extends the aforementioned estimations for flow lines of any length with identical and/or non identical machines in parallel. Numerical examples are presented to show the applicability of the method where identical and non-identical parallel machine cases are considered and tackled.
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