Stability of flexible manufacturing systems

C. Courcoubetis and R.R. Weber, Operations Research 42 947-957, 1994.

Abstract

We consider a flexible manufacturing facility that can be operated in nay of $m$
different modes.  While running in mode $k$ certain intermediate products are
consumed and other intermediate or finished products are created.  There may be
variability in the manufacturing process, as well as random arrivals of raw
materials and orders for finished products.  We establish conditions that ensure
demands can be satisfied while maintaining bounded levels of inventories.
These results may be viewed as generalizing to the flexible manufacturing
context the notion of stability for a queueing system.

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