A METHOD OF FLEXIBLE SCHEDULING FOR FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

This paper presents a scheduling method for flexible manufacturing sys tems (FMSs) by introducing concept of scheduling flexibility. Producti on sequence and available slack at start time are determined for opera tions of part types to be processed in an FMS. The flexibility of sche duling is defined as the weighted sum of the available slack of each m achine. The available slack consists of slack time for starting operat ion on the machine and the sum of ideal times of the machine after sch eduled. The objectives of scheduling are to minimize the maximum tardi ness of completing part types and to maximize the weighted available s lack of machines. The branch-and-bound method is applied and an optimi zation algorithm is developed to solve the scheduling problem. A numer ical example illustrates the validity and feasibility of the proposed algorithm.