Modeling and Analysis of Assembly Systems with Unreliable Machines and Finite Buffers

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Abstract
An assembly line is a tree-structured manufacturing system in which some machines perform assembly operations. In this paper, we consider assembly lines with the following features: every operation is performed in a fixed amount of time, machines are unreliable, and buffers have finite capacity. Usually, the times to failures of machines are much larger than the processing times. This allows us to approximate the behavior of these systems by a continuous flow model. The behavior of this model is then analyzed using a decomposition technique which is an extension of an earlier technique proposed in the case of transfer lines. An efficient algorithm for calculating performance measures such as production rate and average buffer levels is derived. Experimental results are provided showing mat this approximate method is quite accurate.