Reliability Evaluation of Production System With In-Line Stockers

A reliability evaluation method is proposed for production systems by applying the capacitated-flow production network (CFPN) model. In particular, this article considers in-line stockers to monitor and to avoid blockage and starvation in the CFPN. First, the minimal capacity that all cells (group of machines) should provide to meet demand is generated. Second, status of stocker is monitored via the proposed stocker volume check table to calculate the volume usage of a stocker, and the stocker nonutilization is then obtained. Finally, the system reliability is derived in terms of the minimal capacity vector and stocker nonutilization. An important contribution of this article is to avoid complicated dependency calculation when multiple stockers are considered. A practical case of printed circuit board production is further studied to illustrate the applicability of the proposed method.

Automated summary

A reliability evaluation method for production systems using the capacitated-flow production network (CFPN) model is proposed in this study. It monitors and avoids blockage and starvation by considering in-line stockers. The method calculates the minimum capacity provided by all cells to meet demand, monitors stocker status, and derives system reliability based on minimal capacity vector and stocker nonutilization.