Optimal control of a simple assembly system

A simple assembly system consists of two subassembly cells. One unit produced from each cell is required to assemble a product. The production processes at the cells are modeled as point processes with controllable stochastic intensities. We identify a threshold control and establish its optimally using an approach that incorporates dynamic programming arguments into stochastic intensity control. With combined power of both, the optimality of the threshold control is established in a point process setting that is much more general than the Markovian setting usually assumed in dynamic programming. © 1993.