Optimizing total safety inventory for large transfer lines

Az Szendrovits, Gj Miltenburg and Z Goldstein

Omega, 1990, vol. 18, issue 3, 299-313

Abstract: Serial production lines are widely used in production systems. Balancing the capacities of a group of machines and connecting them by a common transfer mechanism constitutes a transfer line. Generally, the term transfer line represents a synchronized serial production line where the output from each production stage is equal to the output of the line. Because the stages are tightly linked together, loss of production due to breakdowns or defective items at any stage can temporarily stop the entire line. Consequently, transfer lines often have low efficiences. However, efficiency can be increased by adding safety inventories to decouple the stages. This paper presents a model and procedures for determining the safety inventories needed at each stage to assure that a prespecified transfer line efficiency is met and that the minimum amount of safety inventory is used. To reduce inventory carrying costs, larger inventories are arranged near the beginning of the line where the unit costs are lower than at the end of the line. Examples illustrate a solution procedure which is applicable to large transfer lines and can accommodate any theoretical or empirical probability distribution for breakdowns and production of defective items.

Keywords: transfer; lines; safety; inventory; inventory; control; machine; breakdowns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1990
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305-0483(90)90043-9
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jomega:v:18:y:1990:i:3:p:299-313

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Omega is currently edited by B. Lev

More articles in Omega from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().