Production Systems Engineering (Springer 2009) is the first ever textbook devoted exclusively to the problems of analysis, continuous improvement, and design of production systems, i.e., systems of unreliable machines and finite buffers arranged to produce a desired product. It is intended for senior undergraduate and first year graduate students interested in manufacturing. The development is first principle-based rather than recipe-based. The only prerequisite is elementary Probability Theory; however, all necessary probability facts are reviewed in an introductory chapter. Using a system-theoretic approach, the textbook provides analytical solutions for the problems at hand and illustrates them by numerous industrial case studies. In addition, the so-called PSE Toolbox, which implements the algorithms developed, is described; for the demo of this toolbox, please click on the PSE Toolbox button above.

The book consists of five parts, each comprised of several chapters. The first part places the subject matter in the general field of Manufacturing, reviews Probability Theory, and describes methods of mathematical modeling of production systems. The second and third parts are devoted to serial lines with discrete and continuous time models of machine reliability, respectively, while the fourth one addresses assembly systems. Finally, the fifth part summarizes the fundamental facts of PSE, describes the PSE Toolbox, and provides proofs of the theorems included in the text.

At this time, this textbook is used for Production Systems Engineering courses at the University of Michigan, University of Kentucky, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and the Technion, Haifa, Israel.