Performance Evaluation of a Push Merge System with Multiple Suppliers, an Intermediate Buffer and a Distribution Center with Parallel Channels: The Erlang Case

In this paper, the most important performance measures of a two stage, push merge system are estimated. More specifically, S non identical and reliable suppliers send material to a distribution center (DC) of one product type. The DC has N possible parallel identical reliable machines. Between the suppliers and the DC a buffer with unlimited capacity, is located in order the material flow to be controlled. All stations processing and replenishment times are assumed stochastic and follow the Erlang distribution. The considered model is developed as Markov Process with discrete states where the Matrix Analytic method is used to calculate the system stationary probabilities and performance measures.

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