AN INTEGRATED MODEL OF PROCESS PLANNING AND PRODUCTION SCHEDULING

Functional integration has taken the foreground in current manufacturi ng system development. Due to the fact that many of the functions in a manufacturing system are developing without a sense of integration, i t becomes necessary that more importance be given to the integration o f functions than the individual development of the functions itself. P rocess planning and job-shop scheduling are the two main information g enerators on the shop floor. Most of the current shop floor decisions are taken by the two functions without any feedback from each other. T his leads to a situation wherein most of the created process plans bec ome infeasible. This infeasibility leads to a unproductive shop floor. In this paper we propose an integrated model for process planning and job-shop scheduling. This approach can lead to more structured decisi on making on the shop floor and hence the creation of feasible plans.