Determination of optimal buffer storage capacities and optimal allocation in multistage automatic transfer lines

One way to improve the efficiency of automatic transfer lines is to provide intermediate storage buffers. These buffers divide the transfer line into stages, each with one or more machines. The machines in a stage are completely integrated, whereas the stages are partially decoupled. Here, the authors study a problem related to buffer storage allocation. The objective is to find optimal distribution of a total storage space among the intermediate buffers. This is formulated as a dynamic programming problem and a heuristic solution is presented.