P. Desruelle et Hj. Steudel, A QUEUING NETWORK MODEL OF A SINGLE-OPERATOR MANUFACTURING WORKCELL WITH MACHINE OPERATOR INTERFERENCE/, Management science, 42(4), 1996, pp. 576-590
Citations number
24
Categorie Soggetti
Management,"Operatione Research & Management Science","Operatione Research & Management Science
We present an analytical approach to evaluate the performance of a man
ufacturing workcell tended by a single operator when operator-induced
machine interference occurs. Each part must be processed at every work
station in the workcell. The fact that one or more machines can reques
t an operator service while the operator is busy at another machine in
duces machine interference. If the reduction of the workcell's capacit
y due to this interference becomes too great, then the customer demand
may not be satisfied. Our approach determines quickly whether the wor
kcell can meet a required demand under its current configuration and o
perating parameters. We do this by modeling the workcell as two intera
cting queuing networks: an open part/machine network, and a closed mac
hine/operator network. In the open network, parts arrive in batches of
a fixed size for each part type, but with exponentially distributed i
nterarrival times between parts. In both networks, service times follo
w general distributions that are characterized by their first two mome
nts.