Modeling and analysis of closed-loop production lines with unreliable machines and finite buffers

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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to propose an analytical method for the performance evaluation of closed-loop production lines with unreliable machines and finite buffers. Such a system consists of a set of K machines separated by buffers of finite capacity. There is a fixed number of pallets circulating in the closed loop. We assume that machines have deterministic processing times but are subject to failures. Failures and repair times are exponentially distributed. We approximate the behavior of this system by a continuous flow model. The continuous flow model is then analyzed with a decomposition technique, which is similar to that used for (open) production lines. Numerical experiments are reported that show that the results provided by this method are in general fairly accurate.