Graphical-based reliability evaluation of multiple distinct production lines

This paper proposes a graphical-based methodology to evaluate the performance of a manufacturing system in terms of network model. We focus on a manufacturing system which consists of multiple distinct production lines. A transformation technique is developed to build the manufacturing system as a manufacturing network. In such a manufacturing network, the capacity of each machine is multistate due to failure, partial failure, or maintenance. Thus, this manufacturing network is also regarded as a multistate network. We evaluate the probability that the manufacturing network can meet a given demand, where the probability is referred to as the system reliability. A simple algorithm integrating decomposition technique is proposed to generate the minimal capacity vectors that machines should provide to eventually satisfy demand. The system reliability is derived in terms of such capacity vectors afterwards. A practical application in the context of IC card manufacturing system is utilized to demonstrate the performance evaluation procedure.