An aggregation method for performance evaluation of a tandem homogenous production line with machines having multiple failure modes

This paper presents an analytical aggregation method for evaluating the throughput (or production rate) of tandem homogenous production lines. Unlike in existing aggregation methods, each machine can have more than one failure modes. The flow of processed parts is considered as a continuous flow of material. The aggregation algorithm consists in recurrent replacing of a dipole by a single machine. To assess the accuracy of the proposed method, simulation and numerical experiments have been conducted. A comparison is made between our method and existing aggregation techniques that consider only one failure mode. It is shown that by distinguishing among different failure modes, a more accurate throughput evaluation is obtained.