Using discrete-event simulation and the Taguchi method for optimising the production rate of network failure-prone manufacturing systems with perishable goods

Due to the effect of stochastic factors such as failure of machines on competitive power of manufacturing organisations in the competitive global marketplace, importance of production planning is doubled. In order to deal with the uncertainty conditions in manufacturing systems, failure-prone manufacturing systems have arisen. In this paper, a network of failure-prone manufacturing machines are considered and final product is perishable product. In previous studies, perishable product to network of failure-prone manufacturing machines has not been studied. The purpose of this study is to find the optimum rate of machines production based on hedging point policy such that the average system costs are minimal. Because of uncertainty in such systems, in this paper discrete-event simulation with the help of ARENA software for estimating system costs is used. Taguchi method is employed to determine the optimal values of decision variables. A numerical example will show the efficiency of the proposed approach.