SIMULTANEOUS EVALUATION AND SELECTION OF STRATEGIES FOR LOADING AND CONTROLLING MACHINES AND MATERIAL HANDLING-SYSTEM IN FMS

In this research, two operational-level problems in FMS, machine loadi ng and controlling, are considered simultaneously. Much of the past re search has addressed these problems independently. However, overall pe rformance of the system is dependent on both loading and control strat egies. Furthermore, most work considers a unique system and thus gener al conclusions cannot be drawn from the research. This paper focuses o n identifying the set of most significant factors which contribute to the performance of the system at the operational level for an FMS. The se factors include loading and control strategies as well as system pa rameters such as buffer sizes and number of pallets. A procedure is de veloped for the evaluation and selection of operational-level strategi es based on overall system performance. The proposed method incorporat es an integer programming loading model, discrete-event simulation mod el at the control level and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The implemen tation of the procedure is illustrated with the help of a numerical ex ample.