This paper reviews recent work on the development of analytical models of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs). The contributions of each of the groups concerned with model development are summarized and an assessment is made of the strengths and weaknesses of its modelling approach. A number...

Common random numbers (CRN) is a widely-used technique for reducing variance in comparing stochastic systems through simulation. Its popularity derives from its intuitive appeal and ease of implementation. However, though CRN has been observed to work well with a broad range of models, the class...

An important issue in the management of supply chains and manufacturing systems is to control inventory costs at different locations throughout the system while satisfying an end-customer service-level requirement. The challenge involved is to solve a nonlinear constrained optimization problem...

Consider a job shop that is modelled as an open queueing network of the Jackson (Jackson, J. R. 1957. Networks of waiting lines. Oper. Res. 5 518--521.) type. All work stations in the shop have the same number of parallel servers. Two problems are studied: the loading of stations and the...

We study a manufacturing process that is quite common in semiconductor wafer fabrication. In generic terms, the job to be processed consists of J units. To process the job, a "setup" is required, followed by routine processing and testing. In principle, the entirety of the job can be set up and...

Consider a closed queueing network (Gordon and Newell [Gordon, W. J., G. F. Newell. 1967. Closed queueing networks with exponential servers. Oper. Res. 15 252--267.]) with a set of stations. The service rate at each station is an increasing concave function of the number of jobs at that station....