Problem 11.6

Consider again the 5-machine line introduced in Problem 11.5. Assume that the capacity of two buffers can be increased by a factor of 2. (a) Which buffer capacity should be increased so that PR is maximized? (b) With the new buffers, will PR always be larger than in the original line?

Production system Engineering Textbook

Problem 11.5 Considera5-machinesynchronous line with ei = 0.8, Tdown,i = 1, i = 1,...,5, Ni = 1, i = 1,...,4. Assume that one machine can be replaced by another one with e = 0.85. (a) Which machine should be replaced so that PR is maximized? (b) With the new machine, will PR always be larger than that of the original line? (c) If the answer is in the negative, find a sufficient condition under which the answer is in the positive.