On the heterogeneous machine interference problem with priority and ordinary machines

This paper deals with a heterogeneous machine interference model under the assumption that the priority machines have preemptive priority over the ordinary ones. In each group machines are characterized by exponentially distributed running and repair times with different rates. The failed machines are served by a single server according to the FIFO discipline. Although the system is Markovian the number of states becomes very large. The main contribution of this paper is to give a computationally tractable method for the solution of steady-state equations. In equilibrium the article is concerned with the main operational characterisics of the system. Finally, an optimization problem is treated and numerical results illustrate the problem in question.