PERFORMANCE EVALUATION MODELS FOR SINGLE-ITEM PERIODIC PULL PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

A number of pull production systems reported in the literature are fou nd to be equivalent to a tandem-queue so that existing accurate tandem -queue approximation methods can be used to evaluate such systems. In this study, we consider developing an exact performance evaluation mod el for a non-tandem-queue equivalent pull production system using disc rete-time Markov processes. It is a periodically controlled serial pro duction system in which a single-item is processed at each stage with an exponential processing time in order to satisfy the Poisson finishe d product demand. The selected performance measures are throughput, in ventory levels, machine utilizations and service level of the system. For large systems, which are difficult to evaluate exactly because of large state-spaces involved, we also propose a computationally feasibl e approximate decomposition technique together with some numerical exp erimentations.