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Unreliable Transfer Lines: Decomposition/Aggregation and Optimization

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Abstract

Complexity has been a long standing obstacle to efficient buffer assignment in transfer lines. For fixed buffer sizes, an approximate transfer line decomposition/aggregation algorithm is developed and its ability to predict line performance is demonstrated via Monte-Carlo simulations. It equates the line with a collection of isolated, unreliable multi-state machines with recursively related statistical parameters. For scalability enhancement, state merging is used to reduce the number of machine states from up to 6 down to 2. An efficient dynamic programming based buffering optimization algorithm which minimizes a combined measure of storage and backlog costs in the transfer line is then presented. Numerical results and comparisons with alternative algorithms are reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Recherche sur les Transports, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Javad Sadr

  2. École Polytechnique de Montréal and GERAD, Montréal, Canada

    Roland P. Malhamé

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  1. Javad Sadr
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  2. Roland P. Malhamé
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Sadr, J., Malhamé, R.P. Unreliable Transfer Lines: Decomposition/Aggregation and Optimization. Annals of Operations Research 125, 167–190 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ANOR.0000011190.86293.c1

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