This paper describes a flow rate control policy to manage the production of a wafer fabrication facility. The policy is derived by formulating and solving a stochastic control problem. The results are then used to develop two sets of production control rules. The first one adjusts the lot...

A single-machine multiproduct manufacturing system with random breakdowns and random repair times is considered. Under a weak capacity condition on the system it is shown that the total work-in-progress (WIP) is a recurrent stochastic process. By replacing the stochastic model by a deterministic...

In this paper, we consider a production planning problem in a two-machine flowshop subject to breakdown and repair of machines and subject to non-negativity constraints on work-in-process. The machine capacities and demand processes are assumed to be finite state Markov chains. The problem is to...

A single machine processing different types of parts is considered. Switching from one type to another involves a setup time. The part types may have different processing times. The resulting scheduling problem is treated as a dynamical system for which several feedback policies that are...

The paper is concerned with the problem of optimal production planning in deterministic pull flow lines with multiple products. The objective is to specify the production policy that minimizes the total inventory and backlog costs overtime. Assuming constant product demands and non-decreasing...

This paper presents an asymptotic analysis of hierarchical production planning in a manufacturing system with two tandem machines that are subject to breakdown and repair. Since the number of parts in the buffer between the two machines needs to be non-negative, the problem is inherently a state...

The optimal production control problem of deterministic pull flow lines with multiple part types is considered in this paper. The last machine is assumed to be the bottleneck. The objective is to minimize the total inventory and backlog costs over time. We give an optimal production policy and...

We investigate the impact of the process of manufacturing and distribution on the safety stock levels in a supply chain. A pipeline hedging method is used to derive a model for estimating the safety stock levels. We propose methods and guidelines to redesign the manufacturing and distribution...

In many applications, robotic cells are used in repetitive production of identical parts. A robotic cell contains two or more robot-served machines. The robot can have single or dual gripper. The cycle time is the time to produce a part in the cell. We consider single part-type problems. Since...