OPTIMAL STRATEGY IN N-POLICY PRODUCTION SYSTEM WITH EARLY SET-UP

This paper considers a production system in which an early set-up is p ossible. The machine(server) is turned off when there are no units(cus tomers) to process. When the accumulated number of units reaches m(<N) , the operator starts a set-up that takes a random time. After the set -up, if there are Nor more units waiting for processing, the machine b egins to process the units immediately. Otherwise the machine remains dormant in the system until the accumulated number of units reaches N. We model this system by M/G/1 queue with early set-up and N-policy. W e use the decomposition property of a vacation queue to derive the dis tribution of the number of units in the system. We, then, build a cost model and develop a procedure to find the optimal values of (m, N) th at minimize a linear average cost.