Improving FMS scheduling by lot streaming

Abstract

The global minimum of completion time for manufacturing systems is determined by the processing capacities of the bottleneck machine-group. How to go close to this minimum for given production tasks is analysed in the paper. Lot streaming can significantly improve the schedules. Hybrid Dynamical Approach (HDA) realizes in automatic way lot streaming and overlapping production. A Brute Force Method (BFM) is proposed in the paper when HDA can not be applied. The essence of this is that the series are divided into the same number of sub-series. The increase of sub-series number stops when the completion time becomes suitable. The effect of setup times is analysed. Theoretical analysis for a simplified problem is performed and planning proposals are provided.