Hewlett-Packard Uses Operations Research to Improve the Design of a Printer Production Line Author(s): Mitchell Burman, Stanley B.

Gershwin, Curtis Suyematsu Reviewed work(s): Source: Interfaces, Vol. 28, No. 1, Franz Edelman Award Papers (Jan. - Feb., 1998), pp. 24-36 Published by: INFORMS Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25062336 . Accessed: 13/02/2012 11:57
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Hewlett-Packard Improve

Uses

the Design
BURMAN

Operations of a Printer
Inc.

Research Production

to

Line
MITCHELL Analytics, 101 Rogers Street, Suite 216 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 STANLEY B. GERSHWIN Massachusetts
77 Massachusetts

Institute of Technology
Avenue, Room 35-331

Cambridge, Massachusetts CURTIS SUYEMATSU

02139

Hewlett-Packard Company PO Box 8906 Vancouver, Washington 98668-8906

As Hewlett-Packard

Corporation

installed

system

for manu

in 1993, it facturing ink-jet printers in Vancouver, Washington, realized that the system would not be fast enough or reliable enough tomeet its production goals. At the time, the market
for ink-jet shipments printers would was exploding, translate directly and any incremental into market share printer and reve

nue gains. The company undertook a simulation project to de for design changes to improve the sys velop recommendations tem performance but concluded that that project would take too long to be useful. MIT researchers used analytical methods to predict capacity and to determine the sizes and locations of
buffers crease that would in inventory. increase HP's capacity implementation at the cost of of a minor in this work yielded

in printer sales and incremental revenues of about $280 million ink additional revenues from ancillary products, replacement increased jet cartridges, media, and related items. Productivity the assembly of the print engine cost about 50 percent, making a method of creating rapid competitive. Finally, HP developed and effective system designs in the future.
FACILITIES/EQUIPMENT PLANNING?CAPACITY EXPANSION MANUFACTURING?AUTOMATED SYSTEMS

Copyright ? 1998, Institute forOperations Research and theManagement Sciences 0092-2102/98/2801 /0024/$5.00

INTERFACES

28:1

January-February

1998 (pp. 24-36)

HEWLETT-PACKARD
The ration ment Massachusetts Institute of Tech Corpo tight project schedule. The best time to is always early in a pro change a design re Later ject. redesign often requires more sources ported. adapted ysis and expense In this case, than can be sup the project team the anal the tools and performed

nology and Hewlett-Packard on a factory collaborated

project. This work revenues of approximately incremental in printer shipments and ad $280 million revenues due to ancillary prod

improve (1) enabled

ditional ucts,

ink-jet cartridges, media, replacement so labor productiv and forth, (2) increased to the assem 50 percent, making ity by up and bly of print engines cost competitive, for designing (3) gave HP a method sys tems rapidly and effectively. The last bene in the long fit is potentially the greatest ro term. It could improve predictability, and system implementation. bustness, to establish This project has helped of these analytical methods. usefulness inMIT The technology is described courses been and the OR research commercialized the

so that HP could incor early enough into the system porate the improvements development. The technology was but not

necessary

is The efficiency of a machine the ratio of the working time to the total time available
sufficient. Most ness and important was the willing to structure, sponsor, of HP managers

business

(Analytics, in the general manufacturing applications

environment.

literature, has through a spin-off Inc.), and is finding

then implement design recommenda on this unproven tions based technology. a took risk when pressure was high They schedule. an aggressive product-ramp They had to manage changes the hardware, and people information, to meet to realize the busi in

Reasons

for Success

systems concurrently ness benefits. Technology The technology rithms duction rithms
performance

This project was particularly successful this phase of because of its timing. During life cycle, demand the ink-jet-technology the for ink-jet printers greatly exceeded HP its all from and of major com supply petitors. Any incremental units produced during mental this time period resulted in incre revenue and market share. The in this project helped the to of HP Division (VCD) greatly used

consists

of a set of algo pro algo

for analyzing systems calculate

and designing (appendix). These

as simulation.

some of the same

measures

technology Vancouver

is very easy to this technology However, use and very fast: it reduces the multi time and the multi month development hour run time of simulations to minutes or over is its major advantage us to It simulation. recommend enabled less. This design window The changes within of opportunity. the development

costs and, most lower production impor at a to increase printer shipments tant, time when market share was up for grabs. A key factor in the success of the project was the university participants' ability to on a innovate and to adapt technology

technology was successful because it allowed the joint HP/MIT team design

January-February

1998 25

BURMAN, GERSHWIN, SUYEMATSU

designs very quickly. This empowered them by providing them to experiment with the flexibility and test their intuition about system behavior. It reduced more the time to market, and optimized Need and it led to a robust to evaluate many ment, HP employment. set a target of 300,000 printers per month for this product line at the Vancou ver site. To maintain stable employment, HP As constrained a result, the size of the workforce. limited to ap 200,000 printers per month proximately HP the using existing manual methods. new needed of production. It de methods cided to improve tomation, of meeting to invest new through au productivity it the best method considering cost, decided in a capacity was which includes stable

design. of

Business HP

is a multinational

manufacturer

electronic

ceeding sion (VCD) Products which

equipment with $38 billion. The Vancouver

1996 sales ex Divi

is part of HP's Computer (the CPO group), Organization

LaserJet DeskJet products, VCD is and computer systems. products, one of two divisions in Vancouver, Wash is one of three manufacturing ington, hubs for the DeskJet series printers. Ink-jet and

includes

the quality, production, and management constraints. HP approximately automated system $25 million

printers are a multibillion worldwide. This market,

dollar as well

industry as the

the for assembling out mechanism that would printer bring put to 300,000 per month while satisfying the other constraints. This automated sys
tem was code-named Eclipse.

for it, has grown rapidly since competition HP introduced the DeskJet product a de
cade ago.

The Assembly System enter the factory (Figure Raw materials an automated 1) through material-handling storage system that includes an automated and retrieval system (AS/RS). The AS/RS to one of two mechanism routes materials assembly systems (Eclipse). Each Eclipse in a modular is structured fashion

the ink-jet printer market grew dur the ing early 1990s, VCD faced the follow As ing conflicting objectives: the HP reputation (1) upholding ity and service; for qual

for the increasing demand (2) meeting share printers and improving HP's market position; (3) achieving enue growth; (4) sustaining its targets and for profit and rev

system with parts feeding into subassembly mod ules and subassemblies feeding onto the main assembly From the Eclipse system.

the "HP way" Mechanism

of manage

system, the products go to the mechanism buffer and then to final assembly. The last is testing. After test step in final assembly

Raw Materials

Assembly

Packaging

Cell (Eclipse)
material enters the factory assembly an automated material through area. Assembled mechanisms

& Shipping

Figure is then

1: Raw routed

to the mechanism

system handling are temporarily

and stored

in a buffer. From the buffer

they go to final assembly

and then packaging

and shipping.

INTERFACES28:1

26

HEWLETT-PACKARD

Original System
100 Non-Buffered Processes Steps i

????????
00000000
su! E??B*;*?a0?e

I i I I

iDirection of
e*?i O

Material ?
iMovement

I
Empty Pallet Subassembly Cell Process ? Station

I
D Subassemblies A

Product
Base

Finished Assembly left subassembly

loop After as vari addi

Figure 2: In the original

cell ous tional (black operations rectangle). are

i system design,
The and

the base is assembled

it moves is added are in the

in the upper
clockwise at on

It is attached performed. take place

to a pallet and first subassembly further The subassemblies

the main

nism

operations is separated from are moved downstream. cell does approximately space was

added,

the upper right. the completed and the

the pallet. The main as much

ventory

designed

in

stays system pallet completed contains 30 automated work stations. Each subassembly loop as four main no in stations. work loop Essentially in-process the system.

print mecha assemblies

ing, the printers are automatically and shipping. packaging In the original Eclipse design a central automated

routed

to

pallet to move work from the primary method station to station. Pallets received an

(Figure 2), conveyor was

and begin the assembly of the next mecha no in-process nism. There was essentially within the space Eclipse systems inventory
themselves.

product base from an off-line sub station. Subsequently, this base assembly empty traveled on the pallet clockwise around at each the conveyor, receiving processing station along the way. Every few stations, was added to another major subassembly until the the mechanism. This continued mechanism separate to await was buffer and stored completed for completed mechanisms into a finished to base in a

or manufac efficiency of a machine turing system is the ratio of the working time to the total time available. Alterna The tively, it is the ratio of the actual produc tion during a time period to what the pro duction would have been if none of the machines system machine machines.
random,

failed. The efficiency of a is less than that of its least efficient because Because
production

ever

of the interactions repairs

volume

and

among failures are

is random.

final assembly This would free up the pallet printer. receive another product immediately

Estimates ratio over

down-time

of efficiency
that we

the average predict The long periods. only forms of

consider here are ma

January-February

1998 27

BURMAN, GERSHWIN, SUYEMATSU

chine failures and Some idleness other due to machine time of nine duction both units seconds, or an uptime pro rate of 400 units per hour. For this comes to a total of 800 systems,

interactions.

such as worker similarly. product differently. Machine starvation Others, systems),

absence,

interruptions, can be treated

such as setups (in multi must be treated

to per hour. We thought it reasonable assume ex that the actual capacity would ceed 540 units achieve per hour and that the plant this if the main line assem

interactions

take the form of

would

If there is no buf and blocking. a pair of machines fer between and the

had efficiencies of 99 percent bly machines and yields of 99.5 percent and if the subas sembly systems had seven-second cycle times and better efficiencies. Based on ap 685 hours of available pro proximately duction time per month, we estimated that the system could produce 369,900 units This exceeded per month. 300,000 units per month. the target of

Machines
they are

can fail only while

working.
fails, the down-stream starved and to it has nothing machine fails, it is is idle because

upstream machine forced work

machine

is immediately to be idle because

on. If the downstream machine

the upstream blocked.

of the Project History a simulation HP sponsored project in the system ther solidify confidence

to ei de

A manufacturing system may have none, one, or many buffers. If a produc tion line has buffers and a machine fails, the next buffer while downstream downstream loses material from it the machine

sign or provide specific recommendations for improvements. the scope of However, was much the simulation programming It greater than the vendor had anticipated. did not expect results until well after the to affect design changes had opportunity
passed.

to operate. If this condition per sists long enough, the buffer becomes and is starved. The machine that empty continues larger the buffer, fore it is starved. fer upstream terial while machine the longer the time be the next buf Conversely, a failed machine of gains ma the previous upstream

neers

this point, the HP development engi and managers sought help from aca demia. They chose MIT because it had ap

At

is still working. If this goes on the buffer fills up and the long enough, is blocked. Thus, buf upstream machine thereby rate. Larger buffers more effec production because they ab tively decouple machines but they do so at sorb larger disruptions; the cost of increased inventory. on the main Eclipse Each machine line fers defer idleness and increase

and the ability plicable analytic techniques to review the design and to propose to meet the objectives. changes Buzacott-Model Capacity Mitchell Estimate of Eclipse

Burman, an MIT PhD candi on this project. He based his date, worked first estimate of the efficiency system on Buzacott's (appendix). in an HP report. could He of the [1967] zero described It showed produce

Eclipse buffer formula

was

designed

to have

a constant

cycle

his analysis that the system

just barely

INTERFACES28:1 28

HEWLETT-PACKARD
the targeted 300,000 the assumptions The Buzacott units if it per month of isolated cycle is based on a set HP and MIT formed a team to develop for correcting the prob on schedule and within and main

met

recommendations lem while the current staying

times and station

efficiencies. formula

of assumptions. The machines constant operation times. The chine blocked. is never starved Machines

equal, first ma

have

taining Need for Some Since

space allocations, current labor levels.

and the last is never

are working. system, so that when other machines it is repaired. as a function the mean

can fail only while they There are no buffers in the one machine fails, all

Inventory the system was already under con struction, the team could not change indi without disrupting the

vidual machines

are forced

to be idle until

is calculated The efficiency time to fail and of the mean

system's development cycle. Consequently, the team could not easily change the effi ciencies of the components of the produc the tion system. Gershwin [1994] describes and between buffer space sys relationship tem efficiency when buffer 3): space (Figure is small, small increases in buffer space in crease system efficiency dramatically. Sys tem efficiency asymptotically approaches the efficiency of the least efficient machine in the system as the buffer This space ap is because buffers

time to repair. The basic design of the Eclipse system was sound, but its performance depended on its meeting some design and parameter Some were questionable: assumptions. ?That individual stations would achieve efficiencies ?That of 99 percent, station yields would

be 99.5

proaches prevent
others.

percent, ?That stations would cycle ?That times of nine

achieve

constant

infinity the variability of each machine's from production blocking or starving the

seconds, and the system was tightly coupled with little buffer space. HP collected performance data as soon as stalled two of the subassembly cells had been in This and run as isolated operations.

co-Buffer Limit-

"'

Production

ma early data indicated that the isolated chine efficiencies were closer to 97 percent In addition, than the needed 99 percent. station cycle times varied much and sometimes more than the exceeded

~ir

^- -_ O-Buffer Limit

anticipated nine-second

target. design The Buzacott model predicted exhibited

Total Buffer Space

stations

pacity would In this case, HP would month. add labor to meet

this performance, be about 125,000 units have

that, if all the ca per had

Figure process crease per the

3: The

production

rate

increases This

as in

in

to

fying many

nulli the requirements, of the benefits of automation.

space inventory at first is rapid and then small. The are easy and to calculate, lower limits rest of the curve the decomposi requires

increases.

up but

tion method.

January-February

1998 29

BURMAN, GERSHWIN, SUYEMATSU

that the best relationship suggested to the of the sys way improve throughput tem would be to install limited buffers at strategic points. the propagation failures without The goal was to dampen of the effects of machine This one of Analytics' initiatives. for these main software we develop accounted

ment

Meanwhile, by using

limitations

approximations. These approximations of

included

break

inventory expanding a method We needed space excessively. curve what this determining actually looked like for the Eclipse system and, in turn, how much needed
target.

into two parts: esti ing up the problem the performance of the main mating loop, and determining the sizes of the buffers needed between and the main the subassembly loop. In analyzing systems the main

to meet

space we the 300,000 unit per month buffer

Decomposition Because of the magnitude of its business to be careful buffer investments,

loop, we were able to ignore the subas faster and sembly cells because they were more reliable and would therefore only rarely affect production were installed between line. We once the buffers them and the main

and sensitivity us HP wanted

space termined that the quick analytic models found in the flow-line literature [Dallery were and Gershwin for 1992] appropriate the task. He tions chose the decomposition equa Gershwin developed by

in determining how much it should install. Burman de

in differences ignored observed common times and assumed the operation

The model's production

estimate rates were

of within

10 percent
observations.

of the actual

decomposition algo rithm [Dallery, David, and Xie 1988]. this decomposition Gershwin developed
method under the assumption that ma

(appendix) [1987] and the DDX

time was that of the slowest ma operation chine. In addition, we approximated the
loop as a line.

chines

have

times. He be random, and

equal, assumed

deterministic failures

operation and repairs to

We tween main

determined

the sizes of buffers

be

independent of the time since any independent event. He assumed buffers to previous finite capacities. Except of equal operation sumption are reasonably for the as times, accurate these for

of each other,

the subassembly systems and the line by treating the material flow as out into and if it of each such buffer
in a two-machine continuous

were

have

material

transfer

line. (The first machine

assumptions the Eclipse We used

represented the second obviated

the subassembly system and the main line.) This represented the need for a long-line decom it possible to treat the in the different the buffers to be sys line

system. the method

because

itwas

the

only finite buffers

one available

that could deal with machines.

position different parts

and made

and unreliable the limitation

operation speeds of Eclipse. We chose

Overcoming tion times was goals

of equal opera one of Burman's main (appendix) and is

large enough tems would, production.

so that the subassembly in fact, rarely affect main

in his PhD work

INTERFACES28:1

30

HEWLETT-PACKARD

New

System i
??s?w
D D DD

ODD
AAAAAA

ODD
oooooo

I
Figure 4:We
inventory

recommended
the

the addition

of (1) an empty pallet buffer,

and the main line, and

(2) space for in-process

(3) space on the main line.

between

subassembly

systems

Recommendations We used methods the decomposition a report that demonstrated that to

chines

are

the number

Increasing frequently blocked. of spaces (in the form of an

produce the following ure 4) could between month: (1) Adding (2) Adding subassembly (3) Adding
stations.

system improvements (Fig to raise estimated throughput and 300,000 units per

empty pallet buffer) increases the produc it reduces blocking. We tion rate because and starvation by this blockage reduced area at the end of putting a pallet storage the system. This storage also served as a downstream buffer to decouple disrup from upstream part loading. system was designed with subas that ran faster than the sembly systems The
main line. However, since there were no

250,000

an empty pallet buffer, buffers between automated cells and buffers the main main line, and line

tions

between

The

system had about 103 locations was designed to contain pallets and pallets. But this many pallets would to congestion put because and would reduce

for 80 lead

buffers main

between line, when

the subassemblies cell

and

the

stopped,

a subassembly line stopped. the main buffers

through the Eclipse is a closed system. fewer parts than there are much When are spaces, the machines frequently the number of parts is starved. But when close to the number of spaces, the ma

ing subassembly 30 minutes of subassembly (approximately 200 units of in-process inventory), HP iso lated any disruptions cells from the main these buffers in the subassembly line. We expected of the time

By install that could hold

to be full most

January-February

1998 31

BURMAN, GERSHWIN, SUYEMATSU

because shorter the subassembly times operation systems had than the main data line. for such items as cycle time, uptime, and itwas used exten and operations in

and downtime, sively

this might appear to be a great Although deal of inventory, 30 minutes was needed to guarantee that subassembly failures (that have utes) would a mean rarely duration of several min interrupt main-line install three other

by engineering the Eclipse achieving decomposition model,

the objectives. Using we performed sen

to determine which action sitivity analysis on would have the greatest system impact
performance.

production. We suggested buffers

that HP

of approximately 12 units each one quarter, half, and three quarters of the way through the line. Based on the performance improve ments we estimated with the analytic HP made these modifications. models, total capital Eclipse System During costs for the changes $1,400,000. Prioritization were

Simultaneously, extensions develop that composition handle (1) would tion times, (2) could handle

Burman

was

asked de

to

to the Gershwin

different

machine

opera

The

to both

very long lines, run in seconds, (4) had a better user interface, (3) would

systems

Improvement Ramp-Up

and (5) had simple data requirements, (6) converged more reliably. Burman completed this work successfully by March of 1995 and described PhD thesis [Burman 1995]. Validation system data from May and June Using of 1995, Burman compared actual system to the performance performance predicted he developed by the model estimates 1995]. The model's rates were within
observations.

HP had finished the hard By mid-1994, ware changes to the system. It set new tar levels for station based on efficiencies get more had realistic to achieve levels. It still performance these efficiencies and sus cycle
the

it in his

tain the modeled

In parallel to

times.
changes, we

hardware

[Burman of production of the actual

and implemented developed rate and reliable information

a more system

accu on

10 percent

The increased throughput resulted in incremental revenue of $280 million.

the Eclipse system. This system provided the information and opera engineering to know precisely how the was as measured system by its performing critical parameters. This would pinpoint tions needed would and of any deviations were when signal repairs adequate. It provided both historical and real-time location the exact

was raised to production between 250,000 and 300,000 per month with the expected productivity. When called upon, the system has demonstrated Actual system the ability to sustain production than 300,000 per month. HP Impact This technology The contributed greater

greatly

to

HP.

technology

we

recommended helped its business

for

system development ver Division to meet

the Vancou commit

INTERFACES28:1 32

HEWLETT-PACKARD
ments during this period. dations took into account constraints sources. of schedule, The recommen the real-world tion achieved manual month. nues in excess of the predicted capacity of 200,000 per additional reve

The approach

space, and re to improvement

assembly HP also realized from ancillary media,

Supply will exceed demand, prices will drop, and the focus will shift to cost control.
the rec had a great value to HP because on were ommendations based rigorous an This increased HP's will alytic methods. an enormous risk based on ingness to take the recommendations. sulted HP in substantial The changes re revenue. incremental to have an

was increased by productivity to 50 of the print en up percent, assembly This is a signifi gine was cost competitive. cant benefit business growth. has for the future, because the left the period Supply will exceed of explosive demand, shift

cartridges, Because

products, replacement and so forth.

prices will drop, and the focus will from revenue to cost control. Other Commercial

expects the technology impact on its future business.

tial long-term benefit of this project is the establishment of a methodology

The poten at HP for that

Impacts of this project led Burman to found Analytics, Inc. Analytics provides manufacturing-systems design services The success that are, in part, based on the principles the work described has here. Analytics in a project for used this methodology of

systems designing manufacturing have improved robustness, throughput,

The Vancouver Division and predictability has leveraged this design approach for systems. next-generation manufacturing can increase estimates that this method throughput automated of all its future manual and It the

Johnson and Johnson, a project for Boeing, and an unrelated project for Hewlett Packard Analytics technology in Corvalis, Oregon. to improve the has continued and has added features includ

systems. This project helped HP to design and im prove the Eclipse automated print-engine an im It had immediate system. assembly pact because of the timeliness of the solu tions. It also helped HP to set a clear man It agement focus for system improvement. made the issues comprehensible a useful tifiable, and it provided language for discussing and quan discipline

and a ing assembly modules (appendix) graphical user interface. The speed and it an of this technology make flexibility ideal complement to simulation. By using one can make robust this approach, decisions and fine-tune strategic-design with system simulation after solidifying architecture. the major

Impact on MIT The immediate the PhD which research

and

and evaluating ex

impact at MIT was of Mitchell Burman,

in

manufacturing-system designs. the when demand During period ceeded resulted million.

research

he completed in 1995. He based this on the he observed di problems

supply, the increased throughput revenue of $280 in incremental We base this figure on the produc

rectly at the HP printer factory. Some of these problems could be treated with methodology already in the literature, but

January-February

1998 33

BURMAN, GERSHWIN, SUYEMATSU

required new research. His results used in the master's thesis of James Schor [1995] and the PhD thesis of Bonvik [1996]. In addition, this some

were

APPENDIX?OPERATIONS TECHNOLOGY
Buzacotfs Assume

RESEARCH

Asbjoern

for other project has led to opportunities MIT personnel to visit and work with HP. MIT will use the new methods and soft ware^?as well as the HP case?in
courses, such as

Zero-Buffer Model a line has kmachines that have constant times. The first equal, operation is never starved and the last is machine never blocked. The time is cho operation sen to be the time unit. Machines can fail are while The only they working. proba bility of Machine Mz failing during a time unit when it is operating is pif and the of Machine M? being repaired probability it is down is r{. during a time unit when We define F{ = 1/f and Rf = l/ru the mean time to fail and the mean time to
repair.

manufacturing-systems

in the systems analysis" "Manufacturing mechanical and engineering department models and ap "Operations management in the Sloan School of Manage plications" ment. This work provides important re sults that will further research in systems design and operation. The success of this university-industry interaction demonstrates the benefits that can result, collaborative Impact and it should encourage of this sort. Research more

Lines with

buffers between

of size zero have

no

efforts

decoupling stages. Consequently, as soon as any machine fails, the whole line is forced to wait. Using these assump Buzacott that a good showed [1967] tions, of the approximation efficiency of the line is

on the Operations will

" E_
from

Community The OR community this project's dramatic benefits. The methods

benefit

k ~ k r: f. + + 1 2i = = 2^ i l ri i l ti
1_1

financial

and other In reality, each machine's work area acts we felt the like a buffer of size 1. However, was Buzacott approximation appropriate the operation time was small rela because tive to the failure time. The efficiency of the line is the ratio of the number of parts produced to the num ber that would have been produced if there were no failures. Here, it is the same as the rate since itmeasures production the average number of parts produced per time unit. Buzacott and Shanthikumar [1993] gen eralize the formula to include systems with different operation times. of Model Synchronous Decomposition of Line four Figure 5 shows a five-machine, buffer production line. For a system in which all the machines had constant,

(though challenging therefore add to the community's credibil as can serve a model for ity. This project interaction. industry-academia can Academia and the OR community to benefit by applying continue research to enable such business benefits. such technologies, cializing social and economic benefits. Acknowledgments We are grateful By commer we can realize

are easy to use to derive) and will

for all the support we The success received from HP personnel. was of the Eclipse project made possible dedication and hard work of many the by individuals
organization.

throughout

the HP

INTERFACES28:1 34

HEWLETT-PACKARD

-QO-D-OOOOOO
\ _

"~ ^

Machine

''

N \

Buffer

and the Figure 5: In this representation of a production line, the squares represent machines to temporary circles represent buffers. Material moves in the direction indicated from machine fail at random times and stay down for random lengths of storage buffer tomachine. Machines time. The buffers are finite, so disruptions are propagated in both directions in the form of
starvation ated only and by blockage. simulation Because or by a of the complexity of its behavior, this system can be evalu decomposition approximation.

times and geometrically equal operation distributed repair and failure times, that the produc Gershwin [1987] showed invento tion rate and average in-process ries could be approximated by those of a set of two-machine lines (Figure 6). lines is con Each of the two-machine structed with a buffer that is the same size as that of one of the buffers in the original are chosen so that an line. The machines sees only the in the buffer, who observer

arrival-and-departure most the same

processes

sees processes, as a similar

al ob

in the corresponding buffer of the line. Gershwin [1987] original developed that determined the parame the equations ters of the machines; and Dallery, David, an efficient algorithm [1988] provided for solving these equations (called the DDX algorithm). Gershwin [1994] de scribes this. in the early We used this algorithm the of stages Eclipse project. Its advantage in less is its speed. A line can be analyzed than a second on a personal computer; a simulation could take months, writing Xie and running it could take hours. Such awkward for simulation long times make analysis and design. is an approximation. This method The of material actual behavior entering and is subtly leaving buffers of larger systems in from the behavior different of material in two-machine lines. This difference creases for systems in which mean time to failure or mean time to repair are very dif ferent among the machines. of Continuous-Material Decomposition Model of Line Because the machines in the Eclipse sys tem do not have the same operation times, we needed a better approximation. How ever, extending Gershwin [1987] to sys tems with machines that have different,

server

Downstream Pseudo Machine

QOO
Upstream PseudoMachine *

C, .-D-O? -DOD
a production for each form a two and a buf line, buf

6: In decomposing Figure we create two pseudomachines fer in the machine fer that original line with same line. We those size

machines as the

is the

corresponding

buffer
chines

in Figure 5.We
so that

choose

the pseudoma
behavior in

the material-flow

the buffer of each two-machine line is nearly the same as that in the corresponding buffer of the original line.

January-February

1998 35

BURMAN, GERSHWIN, SUYEMATSU

deterministic times appeared to processing so Burman be prohibitively [1995] difficult, used the continuous material two-machine line of Gershwin and Schick [1980] in a for long lines with decomposition continuous material and different process rates ing rates. (The differing processing made the decomposition consid equations more to difficult derive than those erably of earlier systems.) He also adapted the DDX algorithm for this case (and called the new algorithm the ADDX algorithm). Itwas also extremely fast. of Continuous-Material Decomposition Model of Assembly-Disassembly System Since the Hewlett-Packard production system included assembly, we needed more than the ADDX for pro algorithm duction lines. Consequently, Gershwin and Burman the ADDX [1997] extended algo rithm (as well as Gershwin's [1991] earlier assembly-disassembly systems synchronous and Dallery's for [1991] work David, continuous-material systems with equal rates) to assembly-disassembly processing and dif systems with continuous material rates. Again ferent processing this algo to be fast and practical. rithm proved It has been implemented with a graphical user interface, and Hewlett-Packard is us ing it as part of its standard methodology new printer production for designing
systems.

Prentice Hall, Englewood

Dallery, Y; David, R.; and

Cliffs, New
Xie, X.-L. 1988,

Jersey.
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efficient algorithm for analysis of transfer lines with unreliable machines and finite buf
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similar

ber), pp. 280-283.

Dallery, Y and Gershwin, S. B. 1992, "Manufac

turing flow line systems: A review of models and analytical results," Queueing Systems The ory and Applications, Special Issue on Queueing Models of Manufacturing Systems,
Volume Di Masc?lo, 12, No. M.; 1-2 David, (December), R.; and of pp. Dallery, 3-94. Y 1991,

and "Modeling analysis with unreliable machines HE pp. Gershwin, Transactions, 315-331. S. B. 1987, for the "An Vol.

assembly and finite 4

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An efficient systems: decomposition rithm for tree-structured networks," Transactions, 302-314. Gershwin, S. B. 1994, Manufacturing Systems En Vol. 23, No. 4 (December), algo HE pp.

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Stochastic Models

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Systems,

INTERFACES28:1 36