A transfer production line namely flow production line is
one of the manufacturing configurations where two or
more workstations consecutively link together and a series
of parts smoothly flows through the workstations. It is
suitable for mass production with a high volume. A task
must be able to divide in small tasks and assigned to each
workstation in a balance manner. The task in each
workstation must be finished within the designed cycle
time and normally the working part is designed to move
simultaneously. Therefore, once any workstation interrupts
or halts, all of the workstations must also be stopped. As
one can imagine, during a production there will be various
minor stoppages due to part short, tool or machine
adjustment, quality inspection, equipment malfunction and
so on. These minor stoppages drastically reduce the
productivity. Thus, a buffer between the workstations is
designed to mitigate the abovementioned problem with an
aim to allow the upstream and downstream workstations to
continue their tasks until the buffer is running out or the
recovery of the ceased workstation is completed. A
number of literatures are investigated. Buzacott formulated
equations for a determination of the optimal sizes of
intermediate buffers in a continuous flow transfer line with
three machines and two buffers [1]. Prombanpong et al.
presented a buffer design in an automated transfer line for
automobile part manufacturer using geometric downtime
distribution to calculate the appropriate buffer size [2].
Hillier et al. investigated a production line performance
during machine breakdown and then studied an effect of
buffer size to the line performance [3]. Wijngaard
compared line efficiency between constant down time
distribution and geometric down time distribution of a
two-stage transfer line with finite buffer [4]. Enginarlar et
al. demonstrated a calculation of minimum buffer sizes to
maintain the production rate [5]. It can be seen that a