OPTIMAL-CONTROL OF A SIMPLE ASSEMBLY SYSTEM

A simple assembly system consists of two subassembly cells. One unit p roduced from each cell is required to assemble a product. The producti on processes at the cells are modeled as point processes with controll able stochastic intensities. We identify a threshold control and estab lish its optimally using an approach that incorporates dynamic program ming arguments into stochastic intensity control. With combined power of both, the optimality of the threshold control is established in a p oint process setting that is much more general than the Markovian sett ing usually assumed in dynamic programming.