Parallel machines

There might be more than one machine in the line that performs the same operation in parallel. For example, the material could flow through any of those machines to have the relevant operation performed. If one of the parallel machines stopped, the rest of the line will continue to run, but potentially at a slower speed.

Line A → Cutting → Washing → Assembly → Palletizing

If the line has three cutting machines running in parallel and two palletizers running in parallel, this means that the line must be modeled as six line sections:

Line A → Cutter (1, 2, 3) → Washer → Assembly → Palletizer (1, 2)

In reality, the line section configuration is determined by what is physically possible in the factory. If there are six cutting machines, then they are grouped into two sets:

Cutter (1, 2, 3) & Cutter (4, 5, 6)

Either they are all included in the production run, or none of them are. This means that the line sections would be modeled in this way:

Line A → Cutter (1, 2, 3) & Cutter (4, 5, 6)

• Cutter 1, 2, 3
• Cutter 4, 5, 6
• Line A
• Palletizing 1
• Palletizing 2