The influence of spare parts provisioning on buffer size in a production system
研究了两台机器组成的生产线中，同时优化备件库存和缓冲区大小以最小化平均成本并满足最低吞吐量目标，发现备件可用性可大幅提高吞吐量或减少所需缓冲区大小。
We consider a discrete-part production line consisting of two machines with random processing and failure times. One option that can mitigate the effect of these uncertainties is the installation of a buffer between the two machines to avoid starving and blocking of the machines. In this article, we additionally allow the keeping of spare parts in stock to enable a fast repair and reduce machine downtime. We introduce a new model to support the optimization of the buffer size and the spare parts inventory level simultaneously. The model is based on a continuous-time Markov chain and our aim is to minimize the average costs, which are composed of costs for work in process and the stock-keeping of spare parts, subject to a minimum target throughput. Our numerical analysis reveals that the availability of spare parts can increase throughput enormously or reduce the required buffer size for a given target throughput. Using our approach, as opposed to a sequential approach, we can quantify the cost savings, which can be obtained by a joint optimization of the buffer size and the inventory level. Large cost savings can be obtained by the application of our new approach.