This paper studies the behaviour and performance of reliable, unpaced serial production lines with either one source of imbalance (namely, unbalanced service time means (MTs), unequal coefficients of variation (CVs), uneven buffer capacities (BC)), or with two simultaneous sourced of imbalance (i.e. MT&CV, MT&BC and CV&BC). The lines were simulated with various values of line length, buffer storage size, degree of imbalance, coefficient of variation, along with a number of imbalance configurations. The primary measures of efficiency were midle time (IT) and average buffer level (ABL). Output data from the discrete event simulation of such lines under their steady-state mode of operation were analyzed using a set of statistical methods. The best, second best or good patterns in terms of IT and ABL were identified and compared to balanced line counterparts. Various relationships between the independent and response variables and rankings of the design factors with respect to their impacts on IT and ABL were also obtained.
