Robustness of state-dependent queues and material handling systems

In many factory settings, performance modeling and optimisation of material handling systems (MHS) is a complex problem. State-dependent queueing models are effective and robust tools to capture this traffic congestion. The integration of state-dependent models of the material handling elements and finite queueing models of work stations is demonstrated. An important property of the state-dependent models when used to model the material handling elements is that they appear to be insensitive to the input distribution. Numerous topological network design (TND) problems and experiments are presented to show the effectiveness of state-dependent queueing models for TND/MHS design.