Approximate analysis for performance evaluation of serial production line

This paper presents a decomposition method to evaluate the performance measures of transfer line with unreliable machine and finite buffers. The proposed method is to decompose the transfer fine into a set of two machine lines for analysis. Nonhomogeneous lines are considered. In such fines, the machines may take the different lengths of time performing operations on parts. A simple transformation is employed in order to replace the line by a homogeneous line. The approximate transformation enables one to determine parameters of performance such as production rate and average buffer levels, and it also shows better applications for a large class of systems.