Improvement due to Flexibility for Stochastic Line Balancing

Abstract

In thsi paper, we tried to improve a given stochastic processing line which is perfectly balanced. By introducing flexibility to a stochastic processing line, we could achieve the benefit of resource pooling. When we apply priority sequencing to the flexible processing line, we could attain additional improvement in reducing mean throughput time. The ratio of improvement from flexibility is shown to be amazingly large by using heavy traffic approximation. We also considered the st-up time loss due to flexibility and derived the appropriated range for flexibility and st-up time. The result of this paper implies that we should consider the alternative of introducing flexibility to a processing system rather than trying to optimally allocate each segments of jobs and get a balanced processing line.