Scheduling Part-Families Under FMS: To Mix or Not to Mix?

• Main Authors: CO, Henry C., MOOSA, Sharafali, GOH, Mark
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2001
• Subjects: Operations and Supply Chain Management; Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/890; https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-3995.00255
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This paper considers the issue of whether to mix part-types in one or several of the families to be produced in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS). For this input control problem in an FMS, we have derived conditions that support the mixing of a part-type, which can share the setup of other part-types, in deterministic environment. The problem is identified as a special economic lot scheduling problem (ELSP), and is formulated as a linear programming problem. Analytical insights are derived by considering the special case with three part-families. The results are illustrated with a numerical example.