The Throughput of Multistation Production Lines with No Intermediate Buffers

This paper concerns the throughput rate of multistation reliable production lines with no intermediate buffers. Processing times at the service stations are independent, exponential random variables, possibly with different means. We extend the work started in E. J. Muth (Muth, E. J. 1984. Stochastic processes and their network representations associated with production line queueing model. Eur. J. Opnl. Res.15 63–83.) to provide an algorithm that allows for the efficient computation of longer lines and to provide results for the nonidentical server case. A result is presented which provides the distribution function of the holding time at the stations.