Throughput analysis of production systems: recent advances and future topics

TLDR

Throughput analysis is crucial for designing, operating, and managing production systems, and extensive research has focused on analytical methods to estimate throughput in systems with unreliable machines and finite buffers. This paper reviews recent studies on throughput analysis and proposes future research directions for automotive manufacturing systems. The authors discuss performance evaluation of serial lines and approximation methods for complex systems such as assembly/disassembly, parallel, split‑merge, and closed‑loop lines.

Abstract

Throughput analysis is important for the design, operation and management of production systems. A substantial amount of research has been devoted to developing analytical methods to estimate the throughput of production systems with unreliable machines and finite buffers. In this paper we summarise the recent studies in this area. In addition to the performance evaluation of serial lines, approximation methods for more complex systems, such as assembly/disassembly systems, parallel lines, split and merge, closed-loop systems, etc., are discussed. Moreover, we propose future research topics from the automotive manufacturing systems perspective.