Integrated scheduling and tool management in flexible manufacturing cells

Abstract

A flexible inanufaciuring cell (l''M(J) is designed to combine the efiiciency of a liigli j)roduction line and the ih'xibility of a job shop to best suit the batch production of ruid-volume and mid variety of products. In view of the high investment and operating costs of h'lVICs, attention should be pa.id to their eifective utilization. Their eircctivc'iiess is, however, directly related to their design and operational strategies. In this study, we propose a.n iutegra.ted algoritlim tliat will solve the scheduling and the tool management problems in an FMC. There will be three stages in the algorithm. The first stage will perform the tool allocation. The second stage will find an initial schedule, and the final stage will finalize tlie schedule via cojitrollable proc(Wsiug times. The main objective of the ju'oposed aigorithiu is to minimize' total pioductiou cost coiisisting of tooling cost, operaXional cost and tardiness cost..