A simulation study of an object-oriented integration testbed for process planning and production scheduling

Many studies on integration of process planning and production scheduling h ave been carried out during the last decade. While various integration appr oaches and algorithms have been proposed, the implementation of these appro aches is still a difficult issue. To achieve successful implementation, it is important to examine and evaluate integration approaches or algorithms b eforehand. Based on an object-oriented integration testbed, a simulation st udy that compares different integration algorithms is presented in this pap er. Separated planning method and integrated planning methods are examined. Also, situations of both fixed and variable processing times are simulated , and useful results have been observed. The successful simulation with the object-oriented integration testbed eventually will be extended to include other new planning algorithms for examining their effectiveness and implem entation feasibility.