Abstract
The allocation of buffers between workstations is a major optimization problem faced by manufacturing systems designers. It entails the determination of optimal buffer allocation plans in production lines with the objective of maximizing their throughput. We present and compare two stochastic approaches for solving the buffer allocation problem in large reliable production lines. The allocation plan is calculated subject to a given amount of total buffer slots using simulated annealing and genetic algorithms. The throughput is calculated utilizing a decomposition method.