Abstract
This paper formulates the problem of how to operate flexible manufacturing systems (FMS's), and examines the effects of five possible procedures, which reduce or eliminate interference among the stations, on the system productivity. It is shown that it is prerequisite for obtaining high efficiency to balance the load at each station as evenly as possible. Provision of buffers in this case according to the variation of processing times at each station will improve efficiency. Scheduling should, then, be considered. This is particularly so when the number of buffer capacity is limited. For the job shop type FMS, input control, which means limiting the launching number of units to the FMS, should be exercised to reduce the buffer capacity required, when the number of buffer capacity is limited as usually is.
