ABSTRACT
Although many useful techniques and principles have been developed in the past, line design is still a very complex problem. A line designer often faces a large number of design alternatives. Moreover, the relations between manufacturing components may be different from one application to another. Effective evaluation tools and searching methods may be derived from advanced mathematics, and this chapter gives a brief introduction to two of those: queuing analysis and optimization theory. Queuing theory has many important applications in modern industry. It is a branch of mathematics dealing with systems that provide services to a well-defined population. Individuals receiving services are called jobs or customers. In addition to the first-come, first-served rule, another popular queuing discipline is priority. Jobs belonging to different priority classes share the same queuing system. There are different kinds of priority rules.
