A new extended system aggregation method of hybrid production lines

Hybrid production lines with unreliable machines and buffers are examined. Different from traditional aggregation method, the unreliable buffers are originally considered and a more general aggregation method is offered, in which not only the unreliable buffers are considered, but also the probabilities of system states are obtained by a discrete model rather than the continuous flow model of unreliable manufacturing systems. The solution technique is offered to get the system sates probabilities. The method advances the traditional system aggregation techniques. Numerical results specify the extended aggregation method and also show that the unreliable limited buffers have a strong impact on the efficiency of the production lines.