Markovian analysis of a discrete material manufacturing system with merge operations, operation-dependent and idleness failures

This paper examines a discrete material manufacturing system consisting of three machines that are subject to breakdown and one buffer of finite capacity. It is assumed that the buffer has two immediate preceding machines performing the same operations and one immediate succeeding machine receiving material from the buffer. When the buffer reaches its own capacity, one of the two preceding machines has priority over the other to dispose its processed part into the buffer.