An Algorithmic Solution to Two-Stage Transfer Lines with Possible Scrapping of Units

An important aspect of the efficient design of an automatic transfer line is the ability to understand and predict the effects of the system parameters such as the size of the intermediate buffer storage space, the cycle times, failure times, repair times, and scrap rate, on the production rate of the transfer line. In this paper we develop an efficient algorithm to compute the production rate of a two-stage transfer line for different system parameters. The algorithm is developed assuming that the failure and repair times are geometrically distributed and that the units may be scrapped with a certain probability when the machine processing it fails. Using this algorithm, extensive numerical results are obtained. Based on these numerical results, the behavior of the transfer line is discussed and some interesting observations are reported which would be useful in the design of automatic transform lines.