An efficient semi-analytical simulation for availability evaluation of discrete production lines with unreliable machines

摘要

This paper presents a semi-analytical simulation which combines analytical model and Monte Carlo technique to simulate the operation of discrete production lines. The purpose is to rapidly evaluate the availability for lines with unreliable machines and finite buffers in the design phase. Firstly, description of production line and availability definition are exhibited. Then, an output and inventory model is proposed to calculate the system output based on the failure data. With the help of Monte Carlo technique, the availability of the whole line in different system parameters can be obtained by iterating this analytical algorithm. Compared with real-time simulation, this semi-analytical simulation can remarkably reduce the computational load to failure number level without losing accuracy. Finally, numerical examples are carried out, and the results indicate that the proposed method is flexible and efficient by comparing with other four methods.