Article ID: | iaor20001236 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 11 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 104 |
End Page Number: | 116 |
Publication Date: | Dec 1999 |
Journal: | INFORMS Journal On Computing |
Authors: | Wilhelm Wilbert E., Som Pradip |
Keywords: | production |
In this article, we study an assembly system that supplies an end-product inventory. We allow assembly operation times to be general, independent distributed and analyze the system as a Markov renewal process, deriving a closed-form expression for long-run Palm probabilities of both kit and end-product inventory positions. We then present a numerical procedure to obtain various performance measures using the matrix-geometric approach. Finally, we describe insights about the operation of the assembly system that are made possible by our analysis, in particular, showing the effects of kit buffer capacity on kit and end-product inventory positions.