Article ID: | iaor20042563 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 125 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 95 |
End Page Number: | 116 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2004 |
Journal: | Annals of Operations Research |
Authors: | Altiok Tayfur, Gurgur Cigdem Z. |
Keywords: | inventory |
We consider a decentralized, pull-type manufacturing system with each stage having its own input and output stock keeping activities. Material handling between stages is carried out according to a fixed quantity, non-constant withdrawal cycle. We approximate the system behavior using a two-node decomposition approach, which decomposes the system into smaller subsystems. The analysis of two-node subsystems is achieved using a matrix-recursive approach due to phase-type modeling of certain random variables. Our solution algorithm resolved a major difficulty (due to batch transfers) in the analytical approch to study multi-stage manufacturing systems. We also discuss system behavior and suggest several rules-of-thumb to improve system performance.