On estimation of the gradient of the performance measure for the production-type network

The development of techniques for optimizing a production-type network via probablistic simulation often requires (1) modeling of the system, (2) estimation of the system performance and of its gradient, and (3) generation of methods for optimization. See the references for some of the recent work in this regard. In this short paper we report some very preliminary results obtained in our development. Specifically we describe a model of the network and its associated typical performance index together with its gradient.