An efficient switching strategy for flexible workstations

A study of production line systems with two flexible workstations and an intermediate buffer storage is presented. Each station can perform two different operations. The setup time, defined as the time that a station takes to switch from one operation to another, is positive. The authors present a procedure to determine the buffer levels at which the stations must change operations so that the production rate is maximized. It is shown that the conjugate gradient technique solves large-scale problems of the type considered very accurately and efficiently, and requires small computer storage