Example 9.9)

Consider a company that is going to build a new manufacturing system

and would like to determine the long-run (steady-state) mean hourly throughput of

their system after it has been running long enough for the workers to know their jobs

and for mechanical diffi culties to have been worked out. Assume that:

(a) The system will operate 16 hours a day for 5 days a week.

(b) There is negligible loss of production at the end of one shift or at the beginning of

the next shift (see Prob. 9.3).

(c) There are no breaks (e.g., lunch) that shut down production at specifi ed times

each day.

Questions:

a) In Example 9.9, suppose that condition (b) is violated. In particular, suppose that it takes workers 20 minutes to put their tools away at the end of a shift and it takes the new workers 20 minutes to set up their tools at the beginning of the next shift. Does N1, N2, . . . have a steady-state distribution? b) Suppose in Example 9.9 that we would like to estimate the steady-state mean total time in system of a part. Does our approach to simulating the manufacturing system present a problem?