A Methodology to Improve FMS Saturation

Abstract

The problem of improving the saturation of an FMS cell is considered. Limited tool buffer capacity turns but to be a relevant constraint. A hierarchic approach is formulated, contemplating at the higher level the determination of “clusters”, i.e., sets of parts that can be concurrently processed. At lower levels, clusters are sequenced, linked, and scheduled. While for the latter subproblems solution methods taken from the literature are used, two original mixed integer programming problems are formulated to determine clusters. The proposed methods are then discussed on the basis of computational experience carried out on real instances.