CONTROL OF MULTIPRODUCT BULK SERVICE DIFFUSION/OXIDATION PROCESSES

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Abstract
This paper demonstrates how knowledge of future arrivals can be used to control bulk service diffusion and oxidation processes. The objective of the research reported herein is to reduce the average time that lots spend waiting to be processed. A review of the current literature reveals that several researchers have dealt with the control of bulk service queueing systems; however, only one has addressed the use of knowledge of future arrivals and it only considered the case of a single product and a single server. This research reexamines the single product-single server case, and men explores the multiple products-single server case. For both cases, a control strategy is devised and evaluated through the use of systems simulation. The steady-state performance of each control strategy is then compared to the steady-state performance of the theoretical optimal control strategy not considering the timing of any future arrivals (i.e. a Minimum Batch Size strategy). The experimental results indicate that the control strategies developed in this paper perform well under most circumstances.