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The Throughput Rate of Multistation Production Lines with Stochastic Servers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2009

Abdullah Alkaff
Affiliation:
Surabaya Institute of Technology, Kampus ITS – KeputihSukolilo, Surabaya, Indonesia
Eginhard J. Muth
Affiliation:
Department of Industrial and Systems EngineeringUniversity of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611

Abstract

A serial production line with an arbitrary number of stations is analyzed using the holding-time model. In contrast to Markovian state models, the holding-time model does not require the service times to be exponentially distributed. The distribution of the interdemand time at the first station is obtained as a function of the distribution of station service times which are of a general nature. The throughput rate of the line is the reciprocal of the mean interdemand time. For service times of phase type, two numerical solution methods, one exact and the other approximate, are presented. Numerical results are given for up to ten stations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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