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Abstract
We develop structural results and an approximation for the throughput of an assembly system fed by multi-station fabrication lines where releases are governed by the CONWIP protocol and all machines have deterministic processing times but are subject to random outages. This formulation is motivated by a printed circuit board manufacturing process.
We demonstrate that while throughput of such systems is nondecreasing in machine speed, there are cases where throughput declines when mean time between failures (MTBF) increases or mean time to repair (MTTR) decreases. Using the concept of "deterministic steady state," which describes the behavior of the system in die absence of failures, we derive a simple, closed-form approximation for throughput. Comparisons with simulation show that this approximation is robust over a wide range of conditions. Finally, we observe that throughput tends to be higher when the bottleneck is located in fabrication rather than assembly.