Iteration Algorithms for Performance Evaluation and Buffer Design of Bernoulli Serial Lines with Waiting Time Constraints

Manufacturing systems with waiting time constraints are widely observed in various manufacturing industries. Under the waiting time constraints, the residence time of a part in a buffer is constrained by a pre-determined time limit. A part exceeding the limit has to be inspected for quality assurance and it is subject to be scrapped with a certain probability. In this paper, an iteration algorithm is proposed for performance evaluation of Bernoulli serial lines with waiting time limits. Based on extensive numerical experiments, high precision in performance estimation is achieved. In addition, to design such lines, an efficient procedure for optimal buffer assignment is also proposed. We numerically verify that the procedure provides a near optimal solution within a very short computation time.