In this paper we tried to improve a given stochastic processing line which
is perfectly balanced. By introducing flexibility to a stochastic processin
g line, we can achieve the benefit of resource pooling. When we apply prior
ity sequencing to the flexible processing line, we can attain an additional
reduction in the mean throughput time. By using the heavy traffic approxim
ation the ratio of improvement from flexibility is shown to be significant.
We also considered the set-up time loss due to flexibility and derived the
appropriate range in which flexibility outperforms set-up time loss. The r
esult of this paper implies that we should consider the alternative of intr
oducing flexibility to a processing system rather than trying to optimally
allocate each segments of jobs and get a balanced processing line.