Cost Minimization Objective Scheduling in a Flow Shop FMS : Backward Meta Scheduling Method

Abstract

Recently, FMS, which is a mid-volume, mid variety production system, has become a most practical production system. Nevertheless, there are some problems in the step of FMS scheduling due to the complexity of the system. Especially, as an on-line system, FMS has to decide the production schedule within a very short period. Among the scheduling rules applied to FMSs, the meta scheduling method is now being most widely used. In this paper, we applied the meta heuristic scheduling method to a model of flow-shop type FMS. Backward scheduling was used to realize the JIT's theory. As the objective function, we adopt the minimizing of the total cost calculated through the schedule of orders. Scheduling methods were constructed and tested in the FMS model through simulations. Lastly, the results of simulation test given by each method were compared to each other to study the performance of the proposed method.