Optimization of capacity in an intangible production

The paper addresses the problem of capacity planning for a production system of intangible products that can be interpreted as an open queuing network. The capacity is controlled through a number of parallel uniform servers and buffer capacity at each processing node. More specifically, an optimization model is presented that complies with resource utilization, production cycle, and cooperation levels under budget constraints. The proposed heuristic algorithm combines analytical modeling with discrete-event simulation. The approach is illustrated by a printing industry example.