A new approach to the analysis of homogeneous transfer lines with unreliable buffers subject to time-dependent failure

Beixin Xia, Chen Wang, Ya Gao, Yunfang Peng and Lei Liu

International Journal of Production Research, 2020, vol. 58, issue 21, 6707-6723

Abstract: This paper presents a new analytical approach to the analysis of transfer lines with unreliable machines and unreliable buffers running in a steady state. The buffers are assumed to be subject to time-dependent failure, i.e. they can fail in any condition, even when not loaded. As the most common representative of this type of buffer, accumulating conveyors are widely adopted in actual transfer lines. In this paper, a continuous model is established for such transfer lines in which the part flow is approximated by a continuous flow. Then, an efficient decomposition method based on a generalised exponential distribution is proposed to analyse the model. A new set of decomposition equations that take into account the mechanism of time-dependent failure are derived and then solved by an advanced algorithm. Extensive numerical experiments are performed. The results show that the proposed method is valid and efficient.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00207543.2019.1685700 (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:taf:tprsxx:v:58:y:2020:i:21:p:6707-6723

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TPRS20

DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2019.1685700

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Research is currently edited by Professor A. Dolgui

More articles in International Journal of Production Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().