Transient Performance Analysis of Closed Production Lines With Bernoulli Machines, Finite Buffers, and Carriers

Abstract

In many manufacturing systems, each piece of intermediate product is attached to a dedicated carrier (e.g., pallet, skid, fixture, etc.) throughout the entire process for material handling and/or transportation purposes. Once a part finishes all processing steps, the associated carrier will be removed and returned to the front of the production process to pick up new incoming parts. We referred to production systems operating in such manner as “closed.” In the current literature, available results on closed production systems are very limited. In this paper, we study transient performance of closed serial lines with machines that operate according to the Bernoulli reliability model. Specifically, exact mathematical model for the system considered is derived based on Markov analysis. Then, formulas for calculating the system's performance measures during transients are obtained based on the model. An approximation method is proposed to estimate a closed Bernoulli line's performance in completing a finite production run. Finally, properties of finite production run-based closed Bernoulli lines during transient are investigated.