Exact analysis of a discrete material three-station one-buffer merge system with unreliable machines

Modelling and analysis of split and merge production systems with Bernoulli reliability machines

“…To implement such operations, different split and merge policies have been adopted to pursue the desired system performance. In recent years, a few performance analysis methods have been developed to model such systems (see review by Li et al (2008) and representative papers by Helber (2000), Tan (2001), Helber and Mehrtens (2003), Diamantidis et al (2004), Helber and Jusic (2004), Li (2004aLi ( , b, c, 2005, Colledani et al (2005), Li and Huang (2005) and Diamantidis and Papadopoulos (2006)). Despite these efforts, split and merge systems with different policies have not been studied thoroughly.…”

“…The decomposition method is adopted to approximate system performance and a three-station merge system is used as a building block. Diamantidis et al (2004) and Diamantidis and Papadopoulos (2006) study discrete three-machine merge systems with geometric reliability of machines. The latter study has an extra assumption that machines can fail when they are blocked or starved, which gives rise to the possibility of modelling multiple products.…”

“…Specifically, a transfer line with split operations based on percentages was introduced by Helber (2000); geometric machine reliability is assumed in that paper. Merge systems with a shared buffer are discussed by Tan (2001), Helber and Mehrtens (2003), Diamantidis et al (2004), Helber and Jusic (2004) and Diamantidis and Papadopoulos (2006). Tan (2001) considers a three-station merge system with continuous material flow and assumes exponential up-and downtime distributions.…”

Modelling and analysis of Markovian continuous flow systems with a finite buffer

“…Forestier (1980) described the model and Mitra (1988) provided a general approach to analyze two-stage continuous flow systems with identical parallel stations in each stage. Tan (2001), Helber and Jusic (2004) and Diamantidis et al (2004) consider merge structures where the upstream stage has two unreliable machines in parallel and the downstream station has one unreliable machine.…”

Analytical methods to support continuous improvements at Scania

“…Therefore assembly/disassembly systems have been considered in Gershwin and Burman (2000) and Chiang et al (2000). General systems, characterised by non-linear flow of material, were analysed in Gopalan and Kumar (1995), Helber (1999), Diamantidis et al (2004), Li and Huang (2005). Systems presenting closed loop architectures have been considered in Commault et al (1996) and Gershwin and Werner (2003).…”