Safety times for multistage assembly system (Q1721490)

Summary: Nowadays, a wide class of problems can be solved by using the classical newsboy model. However, in problems where uncertainty of events and randomness are omnipresent, there is a necessity to adapt the existing solutions and/or find new extensions that will properly answer all requirements. This paper considers a multistage assembly system where interrelated assembly operations with independent stochastic operation times should be planned in an optimal way. Delivery of items in a requested time implies that either delay costs or holding costs appear. The goal is to find optimal safety times. We propose an approximate technique based on successive application of the solution of simpler one-stage problem. The generalized mathematical model suggested is built up on the relaxed hypothesis and can be used in multistage assembly networks. The existence and uniqueness of the solution are proven. The preliminary tests are performed and our approximate technique is compared to exact results.