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Throughput Maximization for Tandem Lines with Two Stations and Flexible Servers

School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0205
School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0205
sa{at}isye.gatech.edu
hayhan{at}isye.gatech.edu

For a Markovian queueing network with two stations in tandem, finite intermediate buffer, and M flexible servers, we study how the servers should be assigned dynamically to stations to obtain optimal long-run average throughput. We assume that each server can work on only one job at a time, that several servers can work together on a single job, and that the travel times between stations are negligible. Under these assumptions, we completely characterize the optimal policy for systems with three servers. We also provide a conjecture for the structure of the optimal policy for systems with four or more servers that is supported by extensive numerical evidence. Finally, we develop heuristic server-assignment policies for systems with three or more servers that are easy to implement, robust with respect to the server capabilities, and generally appear to yield near-optimal long-run average throughput.

Subject classifications: production/scheduling:flexible manufacturing/line balancing; dynamic programming/optimal control:applications; queues:tandem.
History: Received January 2003; revision received April 2004; accepted May 2004.

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