Approximate analysis of unreliable transfer lines with splits in the flow of material

Stefan Helber ()

Annals of Operations Research, 2000, vol. 93, issue 1, 217-243

Abstract: This paper presents a Markov process model and an approximate decomposition technique for a discrete material transfer line with limited buffer capacity. A fraction of the parts processed at some stations in the line may be scrapped or reworked at dedicated machines to meet product quality requirements. Reworked parts are not sent back into the main line. This leads to splits in the flow of material. Processing times are deterministic and identical for all machines and are taken as the time unit. Machine specific times to failure and to repair are geometrically distributed. The model is analyzed through a decomposition into two‐machine systems. We develop new decomposition equations for machines performing split operations. Production rates and inventory levels are computed and compared to simulation results. The results indicate that the method produces useful results for a variety of systems. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000

Keywords: flow line; buffer allocation; performance analysis; split operation; quality inspection; production rate; inventory level; Markov process model; decomposition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1018923907048 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:spr:annopr:v:93:y:2000:i:1:p:217-243:10.1023/a:1018923907048

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10479

DOI: 10.1023/A:1018923907048

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Operations Research is currently edited by Endre Boros

More articles in Annals of Operations Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().