Performance evaluation of asynchronous two-stage manufacturing lines fabricating discrete parts

Asynchronous systems with deterministic processing times are critical for fabricating discrete parts, especially in countries offering high salaries. Despite their widespread application, it is difficult to analyze these systems using conventional analytical modeling tools as commonly used hypotheses for these models consider different conditions compared to real behaviors. This paper presents a new analytical model for the performance evaluation of asynchronous two-stage manufacturing lines fabricating discrete parts with finite buffer capacity. A continuous-time Markov chain flow model that mimics the behavior of discrete asynchronous manufacturing systems by employing threshold-based control mechanisms is presented. The results obtained with the proposed model are compared with those using discrete event simulation, and they show good agreement. The model proposed in this paper can be used as a building block for the evaluation of longer asynchronous lines.