A Markov model for supply planning of assembly systems

We study the assembly systems with one type of finished products and several types of components. The lead times of components are random variables, and the finished product demand is constant. We proposed a Markov chain that enables the determination of system performance measures such as average holding cost and backlogging cost. We show how to exploit the Markov chain results to obtain optimal supply planning of this type of assembly systems. The used criteria is the sum of average holding cost for the components and average backlogging cost for the finished product.