A recursive method to compute the steady state probabilities of the machine interference model: (M/G/1)K.

In this paper a recursive method is developed to obtain the steady state probability distribution of the number of down machines at arbitrary time epochs of a machine interference model (finite source queue) with arbitrary repair (service) time distribution. The only input required for efficient evaluation of state probabilities is the Laplace-Stieltjes transform (LST) of the repair time distribution. Numerical results for various system performance measures have been presented in the form of tables and graphs for repair time distributions: exponential (M), h-stage Erlang (Eh), deterministic (D), hyperexponential (HE2), h-stage generalized Erlang (GEh) and uniform U(a,b). The method is explained analytically by means of a simple example.