| Article ID: | iaor20043030 |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Volume: | 11 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Start Page Number: | 205 |
| End Page Number: | 216 |
| Publication Date: | May 1998 |
| Journal: | International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing |
| Authors: | Kellert P., Gourgand Michel, Almeida D. De |
| Keywords: | markov processes |
An industrial flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is investigated with Markovian analysis in order to estimate the steady-state performance criteria. The system includes flexible machines, fixed storage areas, a fixed number of pallets and an automated material handling device. A procedure is developed to aggregate part-type dependent data so that a single class of parts is obtained and the number of states of the underlying Markov chain is significantly reduced. Problems encountered when implementing Markovian approaches are dealt with by using the QNAP2 software package. Results based on a real workload are given for several transport durations and are very satisfactory when compared with those of simulation experiments. The overall approach exhibits a great flexibility, which is highly desirable for the systems studied.