OPTIMAL SEQUENCING RULES FOR SOME LARGE-SCALE FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING PROBLEMS UNDER THE MANHATTAN AND CHEBYSHEV METRICS

The purpose of this paper is to develop optimal tool partitioning poli cies and strip sequencing strategies for a class of flexible manufactu ring problems. The problems under consideration involve a large number of operations to be performed by a series of tools on a two-dimension al object. For example, these operations could consist of drilling hol es in a metallic sheet. Tools are arranged in a carousel or along a to olbar according to a predetermined sequence. Operations are performed by repeatedly moving the sheet to bring the hole locations under the t ool. During each pass, as all operations involving a series of consecu tive tools are executed, two main problems are to be solved: (1) how t o move the sheet during each pass, (2) how to partition the tools into blocks of consecutive tools. A strip strategy is used to move the she et. Given this policy, optimal strip widths and tool partitioning poli cies are determined jointly. Analytical solutions are derived under tw o metrics corresponding to different operating modes. A numerical exam ple is provided.