An approximate method of calculating the mean sojourn time of K-station production lines with no intermediate buffers

Based on the analysis of the holding time model, an approximate method is proposed for calculating the mean sojourn time of a K-station production line with exponential service times, manufacturing blocking and no intermediate buffers between adjacent stations. Application of this method gives numerical results for the mean sojourn time for K = 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 station lines, that are within acceptable error levels (2–5%), compared against simulation. Also, for longer production lines (with 7–20 stations), it is shown that the approximate results underestimate the simulation ones by 6%.