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

Because of the influence of stochastic factors like failure of machines on the competition power of production organizations in the world competition market, the importance of production planning becomes paramount. In order to confront uncertainty conditions in production systems, failure-prone production systems have been developed. In this article, a network of failure-prone manufacturing systems has been included for study. The considered system has some intermediate products and one final product which is perishable. Perishable products for a network of failure-prone machines have not been studied in previous research. The purpose of studying such a system is finding the optimum production rate of the machines based on hedging point policy (HPP) in a way that the average holding, shortage, perishable goods and corrective repairs cost reaches a minimum. Because of complexity of uncertainty, To identify the production rate of the machines, is used discrete-event simulation with the help of ARENA software for estimating system costs. Tagouchi Method is employed to identify the efficient number of decision variables. A numerical example will show the efficiency of the proposed approach.