Scheduling of Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of production scheduling of a loop type of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). This system consists of the multipurpose machines which are arranged around the loop conveyor. Generally, the property of this scheduling problem of the FMS is that each machine is able to perform many different types of operations. The problem considered here is the two-stage one:first to select an appropriate machine route and second to determine a better loading sequence for that route. A two-stage algorithm based on a heuristic approach is proposed. A simple example is exhibited to demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm.