QUANTITATIVE

ANALYSIS OF
FLEXIBLE
MANUFACTURING
SYSTEMS

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Bottleneck Model

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 Terminology and Symbols

• Part mix : The mix of the various part or product

styles produced by the system is defined by pj
where pj - the fraction of the total system output
that is of style j
pj

where, P=the total number of different part styles

made in the FMS during the time period of interest.
pj = 1

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• Workstations and servers :
n = number of workstations
Si = the number of servers at workstation i , where
i=1,2,3,……, n

FMS

WS 1 WS 2 WS 3

1 2 1 2

1 2 3 4
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• Process routing :
tijk = processing time,
where i refers to the station,
j refers to the part or product
k refers to the sequence of operations in
the process routing

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• Work handling system :
The material handling system used to transport parts
or products within the FMS can be considered to be
a special case of a workstation.
Let us designate it as station n + 1, and the number
of carriers in the system (e.g., conveyor carts,
AGVs, monorail vehicles, etc.) is analogous to the
number of servers in a regular workstation.
sn+1 = the number of carriers in the FMS handling
system

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• Transport time : tn+1 = Mean transport time required to
move a part from one workstation to the next station in
the process routing.

• Operation frequency : The operation frequency is

defined as the expected number of times a given
operation in the process routing is performed for each
work unit.
• For example, an inspection might be performed on a
sampling basis once every four units; hence, the
frequency for this operation would he 0.25.
fijk = The operation frequency for operation k
in process plan j at station i

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 FMS Operational Parameters
The average workload for a given station is defined as the mean total
time spent at the station per part.
It is calculated as follows :
WLi =

The workload of the handling system is the mean

transport time multiplied by the average number of
transports required to complete the processing of a
workpart.
The average number of transports is equal to the mean
number of operations in the process routing minus one.
That is,
nt = ={

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Hence, the workload of the handling system is given
by
WLn+1 = nt tn+1

where, WLn+1 = workload of the handling system

(min)
nt = mean number of transports
tn+1= mean transport time per move (min).

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 System Performance Measures
Let WL* , s* and t* equal the workload, number of servers,
and processing time, respectively, for the bottleneck
station.
The workload per server is simply the ratio WL/s for each
station. Thus the bottleneck is identified by finding the
maximum value of the ratio among all stations.
The FMS maximum production rate of all parts can be
determined as the ratio of s* to WL* .
It is referred as the maximum production rate because it is
limited by the capacity of the bottleneck station.
s
( Rp )* =
WL
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Individual part production rates can be obtained by
multiplying Rp by the respective part mix ratios.
(Rpj)* = (Rp)* pj

The mean utilization of each workstation is the

proportion of time that the servers at the station are
working and not idle. This can be computed as follows :
WLi
Ui = (Rp)*
Si
The utilization of bottleneck workstation is 100%.
To obtain the average station utilization (unweighted), one
simply computes the average value for all stations.
including the transport system. This can he calculated as
follow:
Ui
U= 11
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Number of busy servers
BSi = WLi (Rp)*
Where BSi = Number of busy servers on average at station i
WLi = Workload at station i

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