System reliability and congestion in a material handling system

Congestion in a transportation system prevents vehicles from traveling free ly. Therefore, congestion in a material handling system can reduce the syst em's performance. This paper: (I)develops an analytical methodology for mea suring congestion in a material handling system, (2) develops a congestion measure that is measurable in real-time and readily incorporated into exist ing analytical models for material handling system design and (3) develops quantitative relationships between critical material handling system variab les and system congestion. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.