Design of unreliable flow lines: How to jointly allocate buffer space and spare parts
研究了在任意长度的流水线中联合优化缓冲区容量和备件库存的问题，首次提出该联合优化方法，并通过算法实验和案例分析揭示了备件在流水线中心附近更有效的管理启示。
The design of flow lines is an extensive area of research whereby most publications focus on buffer allocation to cope with random influences like breakdowns or random differences in processing times. In addition, spare parts can directly increase the machines’ availability. However, only a few papers consider the simultaneous optimization of buffer space and the possible number of spare parts in stock. The literature hardly even considers the evaluation of such systems. We are the first to introduce the joint optimization of buffer space and spare parts for flow lines of arbitrary length. First, we aim to allocate buffer capacities and spare parts efficiently. Since the buffer allocation problem is NP-hard, we can expect only to find near-optimal solutions. Second, we demonstrate the algorithmic behavior of different greedy and metaheuristics on this design problem. We illustrate how to exploit the problem structure to solve it almost optimally. Third, we generate managerial insights into allocating spare parts in manufacturing systems with buffers. We show that spare parts tend to be more effective when arranged at or near the center of a flow line, as it is already known for buffers. Moreover, we provide details on the combined buffer and spare part allocations.