Studies of Flexible Manufacturing Cells with Automatic Setup Function (Part II)

Effective Use of Flexible Manufacturing Cells

Abstract

A two-phase optimizing algorithm is proposed to achieve the minimum total elapsed time, in order to effectively operate the FMC constructed in the previous paper. First, a scheduling problem is formulated as a two-machine, flow-shop model with buffer spaces. Next, a process planning problem for effectively operating this FMC is developed to determine both the optimum sequence of operations and the optimum machining conditions for workpieces to be machined. using the results of scheduling.Finally, a numerical example is given to show the, practical applicability of this two-phase algorithm.