Non-reshuffle-based approach for rescheduling of flexible manufacturing system

Abstract

Scheduling and rescheduling play vital roles in ensuring the effectiveness of the production control in flexible manufacturing system (FMS). The failure of these systems may interrupt the efficiency of the production activities and thus may lessen the profit to be gained by the company. The FMS scheduling problem is considered as dynamic as new orders may get in every day. The new orders need to be immediately desegregated with the existing production schedule by preserving the efficiency and stability of the existing schedule. This research applies the non-reshuffle-based genetic match-up algorithms which admit new orders by manipulating available machine idle times to address rescheduling problem in a FMS that practises the pull strategy. The idea of the match-up approach is to update only a part of the initial schedule and genetic algorithms used to optimise the solution within the rescheduling horizon in such a way in order to preserve the efficiency and stability of the shop floor. The proposed methodology has been tested using different rescheduling parameters. The experiments show that the rescheduling method improves efficiency and stability of the new schedule.