Performance evaluation of flexible manufacturing systems and finite local buffers: Fixed and dynamic routings

This article evaluates the performance of flexible manufacturing systems with finite local buffers and fixed or dynamic routing rules, and addresses the optimal design or system configuration problem of maximizing the system throughput. The costs include machine cost, part (or pallet) cost, and local buffers cost. First, the system throughputs and their behaviors are considered with both queueing network analysis and simulation, and it is shown for a fixed routing model that the system throughput in the case of finite local buffers is greater than in the case of infinite local buffers. For a fixed versus dynamic routing rule, it is also found that the throughput in the former case can be close to the one in the latter case by changing the setting parameters. Next, the design problems of maximizing the system throughput are considered numerically for fixed and dynamic routing cases. Then, it is seen that better combination of design variables is a class of the monotonicity in local buffers, service rates, and routing probabilities.