Abstract
In many manufacturing contexts, performance modelling of an integrated production and material handling system is a complex problem. Existing research lacks an in-depth consideration of the integration of these two areas. A flexible flow shop with random and state-dependent batch transport, where the batch size depends on the number of jobs in the buffers and the capacity of automated guided vehicles, is considered and modelled as an open queueing network with blocking. A decomposition method of state space is proposed for computing system performance measures. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are demonstrated by comparing the results with simulations from numerical experiments. Meanwhile, the properties of the system, especially for material handling processes, are investigated and analyzed according to the experiments. The results of this paper can be used as a basis for system design, analysis, and resource planning.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.