Analysis and synthesis of asynchronous, asymptotically reliable,asymptotically controllable serial production lines

摘要

Synchronous serial production lines are advantageous from thenproduction rate point of view whereas asynchronous ones ensure a highernquality. Both, however, are usually run in a balanced mode where thencycle times of all machines are identical. It is shown that asynchronousnlines being run in an appropriate unbalanced mode, could have anproduction rate close to that of the synchronous lines. Analysis andnsynthesis methods are presented for a certain class of asynchronousnlines and synthesis methods are presented for a certain class ofnasynchronous lines consisting of the so-called asymptotically reliable,nasymptotically controllable machines. The results are applied to a casenstudy of a paint shop operation in a modern automobile assembly plant,nand an 11% improvement in the average production rate, predictedntheoretically and observed practically, is reported