LOADING STRATEGIES FOR A CLASS OF JUST-IN-TIME MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

In this paper, based on the group technology and the just-in-time manu facturing concepts, two loading models for optimal utilisation of the processing capabilities of an integrated manufcturing system consistin g of a set of heterogeneous workstations are developed. These loading models are developed to integrate and utilise the available informatio n from both the bill of materials and the process plans. The objective functions for these models are: the maximum tardiness and the makespa n. In these models, the production quantity of each customer order for any part or product always equals its corresponding demand quantity; each part requires a finite number of aggregated stages of operation; job splitting is allowed; and the processing priorities of all the job s during the planning time horizon are specified based on a desirable dispatching rule. The proposed mathematical programming models are fix ed charge problems which are solved by compatible mixed integer progra mming algorithms. Finally, to provide additional decision-making capab ilities, based on these models and their corresponding solution algori thms, a compatible decision support system is suggested.