Maintenance system design problems for a flexible manufacturing system

We investigate three maintenance float problems in a flexible manufacturing system. In the first two problems, we apply the classical queueing modelling approach to study the characteristics of the fractional utilization of the system. For the first problem, we obtain the optimal solution using an efficient procedure that exploits the characteristics of the fractional utilization of the system. However, the second problem is too complex and can not be easily solved using the classical queueing modelling approach. Therefore, only an enumerative procedure is used to obtain a solution. Finally, for the third and the least rigidly-assumed problem, we combined simulation and regression techniques to obtain a useful expression for the fractional utilization of the system. This results in a more tractable mathematical program which can be solved more easily.