A system-theoretic property of serial production lines: improvability

A production system is called improvable if the limited resources involved in its operation can be redistributed so that a performance measure is improved. In this paper, the property of improvability is analyzed for the case of a particular system-the serial production line. Improvability of the production rate with respect to the workforce and work-in-process distribution is analyzed, appropriate indicators of improvability are derived, and their utilization in the process of continuous improvement is discussed. It is shown, in particular, that in a well designed system each buffer is, on the average, half full, and each intermediate machine has equal frequencies of blockages and starvations