CONTROL POLICY SIMULATION-BASED ON MACHINE AGE IN A FAILURE PRONE ONE-MACHINE, ONE-PRODUCT MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

This paper deals with the production planning problem of a flexible ma nufacturing system (FMS). This problem is within the class of problems which are usually faced during the life cycle of FMS. There are basic ally two approaches used to solve this problem: analytical and simulat ion. The objective of this paper is to develop a methodology for deter mine the control policy for a given FMS by using the combination of bo th analytical and simulation approaches. The production rate control o f a one-machine one-product system is presented to illustrate our appr oach. The contribution of the analytical part of the proposed model co nsists of generating a near-optimal controller based on the concept of an age-dependent hedging point policy. This sub-optimal policy is use d as input of the simulation part and the improvement of operating con ditions (control policies) achieved with a constant demand rate. The p roposed model includes also a stochastic demand and lot sizes in produ ction which consists of similar products batches with bulk arrivals. T he robustness of the controller against both demand rates and producti on types has been validated.