Reliability and Inventory in a Production-Storage System

Abstract

The reliability of a single stage production-storage system in meeting a constant known demand is analyzed. This system consists of a production facility subject to stochastic failure and repair processes and a storage facility of fixed capacity. When operable, the production facility is assumed to produce at a rate greater than the demand until the storage capacity is exhausted and then at the demand rate. Expressions are developed for the fraction of time demand is met and the average inventory level in the storage facility. Two variants of this problem are also solved.