Real-time performance analysis of production lines: A system-theoretic approach

Real-time control of production systems has significant practical and theoretical implications, especially in rapid response and decision making under critical conditions. However, analytical methods for analysis and control of production system in real-time remain largely unexplored. In the framework of serial production lines with Bernoulli machines and finite buffers, this paper develops a mathematical model for real-time performance analysis and derives closed-form expressions for evaluating the production rate, consumption rate, work-in-process, and probabilities of machine starvation and blockage, in real-time. In addition, a computation-efficient procedure based on recursive aggregation is developed to approximate the real-time performance measures with high accuracy.