Examining the Distribution of Buffer Protection

Abstract

This paper examines the stochastic behavior of buffer protection (in-process inventory storage) in an 2V-machine single-buffer series system. The approach is specifically developed for unbalanced production lines (i.e., the minimum production rate of those machines preceding the buffer is different than the minimum production rate of those machines following the buffer). For the case of exponential uptimes and general downtimes, this paper presents methodology which can be used to obtain the /z-step transition probabilities and the limiting distribution of buffer protection. This information can be used to evaluate the effect of changes in system parameters on system performance.