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Lean buffering in serial production lines with non-exponential machines

In: Stochastic Modeling of Manufacturing Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Emre Enginarlar

    (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • Jingshan Li

    (GM Research and Development Center)

  • Semyon M. Meerkov

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

In this paper, lean buffering (i.e., the smallest level of buffering necessary and sufficient to ensure the desired production rate of a manufacturing system) is analyzed for the case of serial lines with machines having Weibull, gamma, and log-normal distributions of up- and downtime. The results obtained show that: (1) the lean level of buffering is not very sensitive to the type of up- and downtime distributions and depends mainly on their coefficients of variation, CV up and CV down; (2) the lean level of buffering is more sensitive to CV down than to CV up but the difference in sensitivities is not too large (typically, within 20%). Based on these observations, an empirical law for calculating the lean level of buffering as a function of machine efficiency, line efficiency, the number of machines in the system, and CV up and CV down is introduced. It leads to a reduction of lean buffering by a factor of up to 4, as compared with that calculated using the exponential assumption. It is conjectured that this empirical law holds for any unimodal distribution of up- and downtime, provided that CV up and CV down are less than 1.

Suggested Citation

  • Emre Enginarlar & Jingshan Li & Semyon M. Meerkov, 2006. "Lean buffering in serial production lines with non-exponential machines," Springer Books, in: George Liberopoulos & Chrissoleon T. Papadopoulos & Barış Tan & J. M. Smith & Stanley B. Gershwin (ed.), Stochastic Modeling of Manufacturing Systems, pages 29-53, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-29057-5_2
    DOI: 10.1007/3-540-29057-5_2
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