OPTIMAL PRODUCTION RUN FOR PROCESSES WITH CONSTANT AND RANDOM DRIFTS

In this paper, we consider a production process with a continuous drif t in the mean of a quality characteristic of the product. We develop m odels for this problem in which we consider the drift to be either kno wn in advance and constant, or occurs in a random fashion. We analyse the developed models and discuss the shape of the resulting cost funct ion for one of the models which helps in obtaining a global solution o f the problem. We suggest several schemes for solving the resulting mo dels which give policies for optimal tool replacement. We also present some numerical examples. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.