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

Abstract

Many production systems have split and merge operations to increase production capacity and variety, improve product quality, and implement product control and scheduling policies. In this paper, we present analytical methods to model and analyse Bernoulli split and merge production systems with circulate, priority and percentage split/merge policies. The recursive procedures for performance analysis are derived, the convergence of the procedures and uniqueness of the solutions, along with the structural properties, are proved, and the accuracy of the estimation is justified with high precision.

Modeling and analysis of Bernoulli production systems with split and merge

“…The methods introduced here can be easily extended to split and merge systems with longer lines and multiple branches (see Figures 9 and 10 for illustrations of split systems, similar figures for merge systems can be found in [19]). The preliminary studies have been carried out to analyze such systems.…”

“…Due to page limitation, the study of percentage policy is omitted in this paper. A detailed analysis on it can be found in [19].…”

“…Discussions and extensions to larger systems are presented in Section V. Finally, Section VI formulates the conclusions of the paper. Due to space limitation, all proofs are omitted and can be found in [19].…”

Performance analysis of split and merge production systems

“…Such a study can enable us to understand the impact of different policies and provide guidance to control the part flow in operations. A preliminary study on Bernoulli split and merge systems with several routing policies has been carried out in [14]. This paper is intended to extend this work to more general cases, exponential machine reliability models with more routing policies.…”

A buffered three-station merge system: Performance analysis and comparative study

“…The authors assumed that the machines can fail not only when they are operational but also when they are either blocked or starved (idle). Recently, Liu and Li [10], [11] presented an analytical model to evaluate respectively Bernoulli and exponential split and merge production systems with circulate priority and percentage split/merge policies. They developed recursive procedures to evaluate the performance of the considered systems.…”