A new modeling method for both transient and steady-state analyses of inhomogeneous assembly systems. (October 2018) - Hou, Yukan
Highlights: Present a new modeling method for inhomogeneous complex assembly systems. Prove the new method analytically. Characterize both steady-state performance and transient behavior. Overcome restrictions on the number of machines and the capacity of buffers. Abstract: Production system modeling (PSM) focuses on revealing the component-level principles of production procedures. Despite the extensive studies for PSM of serial production systems, assembly systems have received much less investigation. Among existing PSM researches on assembly lines, most are focused on the steady-state system performance, while the transient behavior of the inhomogeneous assembly systems is largely unexplored. This paper presents a new analytical PSM method for inhomogeneous assembly systems considering Bernoulli machines and finite buffers. By using the proposed 'Split-View' method, both transient and steady-state analyses of such systems can be performed. This model can be solved without using the traditional decomposition technique. The solvability of the established model has been proven theoretically. The sensitivity studies of system performance in both transient and steady states are numerically investigated. Numerical studies demonstrate the high accuracy of the method comparing with the simulation results.