Integration of Process Planning and Scheduling Using Simulation Based Genetic Algorithms

Process planning and scheduling are traditionally regarded as separate tasks performed sequentially; but, if the two tasks are performed concurrently, greater performance and higher productivity of a manufacturing system can be achieved. Although several workers have addressed the process plan selection problem in recent years, their main approaches are to select process plans from plan alternatives by taking into account the similarities among process plans of the parts. In this paper, we propose a new approach to the integration of process planning and scheduling using simulation based genetic algorithms. A simulation module computes performance measures based on process plan combinations instead of process plan alternatives and those measures are fed into a genetic algorithm in order to improve the solution quality until the scheduling objectives are satisfied. Computational experiments show that the proposed method reduces significantly scheduling objectives such as makespan and lateness.     

考虑多目标的工艺规划与调度集成问题研究

针对工艺规划与调度集成问题在多目标优化方面的不足,考虑将多目标优化集成到工艺规划与调度集成问题中。以最长完工时间、加工成本及设备最大负载为优化目标,对该多目标工艺规划与调度集成问题进行建模,并提出了一种非支配排序遗传算法,鉴于加工信息的多样性,使用多层结构表示可行解,对该算法的选择及遗传操作等步骤进行了设计。最后,以实例验证了上述模型的正确性及算法的有效性。     

Optimization of multi-objective integrated process planning and scheduling problem using a priority based optimization algorithm

For increasing the overall performance of modern manufacturing systems, effective integration of process planning and scheduling functions has been an important area of consideration among researchers. Owing to the complexity of handling process planning and scheduling simultaneously, most of the research work has been limited to solving the integrated process planning and scheduling (IPPS) problem for a single objective function. As there are many conflicting objectives when dealing with process planning and scheduling, real world problems cannot be fully captured considering only a single objective for optimization. Therefore considering multi-objective IPPS (MOIPPS) problem is inevitable. Unfortunately, only a handful of research papers are available on solving MOIPPS problem. In this paper, an optimization algorithm for solving MOIPPS problem is presented. The proposed algorithm uses a set of dispatching rules coupled with priority assignment to optimize the IPPS problem for various objectives like makespan, total machine load, total tardiness, etc. A fixed sized external archive coupled with a crowding distance mechanism is used to store and maintain the non-dominated solutions. To compare the results with other algorithms, a C-matric based method has been used. Instances from four recent papers have been solved to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed method is an efficient approach for solving the MOIPPS problem.     

An effective multi-objective genetic algorithm based on immune principle and external archive for multi-objective integrated process planning and scheduling

Process planning and scheduling are two major sub-systems in a modern manufacturing system. In traditional manufacturing system, they were regarded as the separate tasks to perform sequentially. However, considering their complementarity, integrating process planning and scheduling can further improve the performance of a manufacturing system. Meanwhile, the multiple objectives are needed to be considered during the realistic decision-making process in a manufacturing system. Based on the above requirements from the real manufacturing system, developing effective methods to deal with the multi-objective integrated process planning and scheduling (MOIPPS) problem becomes more and more important. Therefore, this research proposes a multi-objective genetic algorithm based on immune principle and external archive (MOGA-IE) to solve the MOIPPS problem. In MOGA-IE, the fast non-dominated sorting approach used in NSGA-II is utilized as the fitness assignment scheme and the immune principle is exploited to maintain the diversity of the population and prevent the premature condition. Moreover, the external archive is employed to store and maintain the Pareto solutions during the evolutionary process. Effective genetic operators are also designed for MOIPPS. To test the performance of the proposed algorithm, three different scale instances have been employed. And the proposed method is also compared with other previous algorithms in literature. The results show that the proposed algorithm has achieved good improvement and outperforms the other algorithms.     

An optimization tool for operational tolerances allocation, work in process inventory minimization, and machines assignment in a discrete part manufacturing environment

In the last two decades, many researchers have addressed the superior system performance resulted from the integration of process planning and scheduling functions. However, most of the published solution methods in this field fall short in three accounts. First, while integrating with scheduling, they ignore the checking of process planning feasibility with respect to tolerances allocation. Thus, operational tolerances may stackup beyond the blue print tolerances making the process plans infeasible. Second, they ignore the machines capabilities during the integration modeling which make these solution models practically inapplicable. Third, they focus on time consideration, such as makespan or lateness, and do not consider manufacturing cost related to operations-machines assignment. This paper presents an innovative model for the integration of process planning and scheduling in a job-shop environment. The model simultaneously serves three purposes: allocating operational tolerances while minimizing its manufacturing cost, minimizing the work in process inventory, and figuring the operation-machine assignments. The preemptive-goal programming method is used to solve the proposed multiobjective non-linear mixed integer model, and an implementation example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modeling approach.     

A hybrid genetic algorithm for integrated process planning and scheduling problem with precedence constraints

Process planning and scheduling are two important functions in a modern manufacturing system. Although integrating decisions related to these functions gives rise to a hard combinatorial problem, due to the impressive improvement in system performance which is resulted through this integration, developing effective methods to solve this problem is of great theoretical and practical importance. In this research, after formulating the integrated process planning and scheduling problem as a mathematical program, we propose a hybrid genetic algorithm (GA) for the problem. In the proposed algorithm, problem-specific genetic operators are designed to enhance the global search power of GA. Also, a local search procedure has been incorporated into the GA to improve the performance of the algorithm. The model considers precedence relations among job operations, based on which feasible process plans for each job can be represented implicitly. A novel neighborhood function, considering the constraints of a flexible job shop environment and nonlinear precedence relations among operations, is presented to speed up the local search process. In experimental study, the performance of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated based on a number of problems adopted from the literature. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm to find optimal or near-optimal solutions.     

A particle swarm optimization for multi-objective flowshop scheduling

The academic approach of single-objective flowshop scheduling has been extended to multiple objectives to meet the requirements of realistic manufacturing systems. Many algorithms have been developed to search for optimal or near-optimal solutions due to the computational cost of determining exact solutions. This paper provides a particle swarm optimization-based multi-objective algorithm for flowshop scheduling. The proposed evolutionary algorithm searches the Pareto optimal solution for objectives by considering the makespan, mean flow time, and machine idle time. The algorithm was tested on benchmark problems to evaluate its performance. The results show that the modified particle swarm optimization algorithm performed better in terms of searching quality and efficiency than other traditional heuristics.     

Production planning in virtual cell of reconfiguration manufacturing system using genetic algorithm

This paper focuses on the scheduling problem of the reconfiguration manufacturing system (RMS) for execution level, where the final objective is to output a production plan. The practical situation in Chinese factory is analyzed, and the characteristics are summarized into the contradiction between flow and job shop production. In order to handle this problem, a new production planning algorithm in virtual cells is proposed for RMS using an improved genetic algorithm. The advantages of this algorithm have three parts: (1) the virtual cell reconfiguration is formed to assist making production plans through providing relationship among task families and machines from cell formation; (2) The operation buffer algorithm is developed for flow style production in cells, which can realize the nonstop processing for flow style jobs; and (3) The multicell sharing method is proposed to schedule job shop jobs in order to fully utilize manufacturing capability among machines in multicells. Based on the above advantages, an improved genetic algorithm is developed to output scheduling plan. At last, the algorithm is tested in different instances with LINGO and the other genetic algorithm, and then the scheduling solution comparison shows the proposed algorithm can get a better optimum result with the same time using the comparison algorithm.     

A simulated annealing/local search to minimize the makespan and total tardiness on a hybrid flowshop

Scheduling is a major issue faced every day in manufacturing systems as well as in the service industry, so it is essential to develop effective and efficient advanced manufacturing and scheduling technologies and approaches. Also, it can be said that bi-criteria scheduling problems are classified in two general categories respecting the approach used to solve the problem. In one category, the aim is to determine a schedule that minimizes a convex combination of two objectives and in the other category is to find a good approximation of the set of efficient solutions. The aim of this paper is to determine a schedule for hybrid flowshop problem that minimizes a convex combination of the makespan and total tardiness. For the optimization problem, a meta-heuristic procedure is proposed based on the simulated annealing/local search (SA/LS) along with some basic improvement procedures. The performance of the proposed algorithm, SA/LS, is compared with a genetic algorithm which had been presented in the literature for hybrid flowshop with the objective of minimizing a convex combination of the makespan and the number of tardy jobs. Several computational tests are used to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm against the other algorithm provided in the literature. From the results obtained, it can be seen that the proposed algorithm in comparison with the other algorithm is more effective and efficient.     

Real-time GA-based rescheduling approach for the pre-sewing stage of an apparel manufacturing process

In this paper, a real-time segmentation rescheduling (RSR) approach using genetic algorithms to handle the production planning and scheduling problem in dynamic apparel manufacturing environment is proposed. Experiments based on the actual production data were conducted to validate the performance of the RSR approach. The experimental results indicated that the makespan and the influence caused by the change of schedule could be minimised.     

考虑不确定加工时间的工艺规划与调度集成问题研究

为使工艺规划与调度集成问题更加符合实际,将不确定加工时间考虑到工艺规划与调度集成问题中,并以三角模糊数表示加工时间,提出一种考虑模糊加工时间的工艺规划与调度集成问题。以最大模糊完工时间最小为目标,对该问题进行建模。提出一种多层编码结构的遗传算法,对该问题进行求解。最后,以实例验证了上述模型的正确性及算法的有效性。     

A TSP-GA multi-objective algorithm for flow-shop scheduling

A multi-objective evolutionary search algorithm using a travelling salesman algorithm and genetic algorithm for flow-shop scheduling is proposed in this paper. The initial sequence is obtained by solving the TSP. The initial population of the genetic algorithm is created with the help of a neighbourhood creation scheme known as a random insertion perturbation scheme, which uses the sequence obtained from TSP. The proposed algorithm uses a weighted sum of multiple objectives as a fitness function. The weights are randomly generated for each generation to enable a multi-directional search. The performance measures considered include minimising makespan, mean flow time and machine idle time. The performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by applying it to benchmark problems available in the OR-Library.     

Flow shop scheduling with multiple objective of minimizing makespan and total flow time

This paper deals with the multicriterion approach to flow shop scheduling [FSS] problems by considering makespan time and total flow time. The primary concern of flow shop scheduling is to obtain the best sequence, which minimizes the makespan, flow time, idle time, tardiness, etc. In this work, makespan and total flow time of the jobs are considered for minimization. Three heuristic algorithms namely HAMC1, HAMC2 and HAMC3 have been proposed in this paper. The effectiveness of the heuristics has been analyzed using the problems generated by Taillard [16]. The results of the problems are compared with the solution procedures proposed by Rajendran [15]. The new hybrid algorithms are developed by taking the seed sequences yielded by a method proposed by Rajendran [14] in his work to minimize flow time and improving it using search algorithm. The hybrid algorithm gives better results.     

Optimization of flexible process planning by genetic programming

The traditional manufacturing system research literature generally assumed that there was only one feasible process plan for each job. This implied that there was no flexibility considered in the process plan. But, in the modern manufacturing system, most jobs may have a large number of flexible process plans. So, flexible process plans selection in a manufacturing environment has become a crucial problem. In this paper, a new method using an evolutionary algorithm, called genetic programming (GP), is presented to optimize flexible process planning. The flexible process plans and the mathematical model of flexible process planning have been described, and a network representation is adopted to describe the flexibility of process plans. To satisfy GP, it is very important to convert the network to a tree. The efficient genetic representations and operator schemes also have been considered. Case studies have been used to test the algorithm, and the comparison has been made for this approach and genetic algorithm (GA), which is another popular evolutionary approach to indicate the adaptability and superiority of the GP-based approach. The experimental results show that the proposed method ispromising and very effective in the optimization research of flexible process planning.     

Solving a multi-objective overlapping flow-shop scheduling

In flow-shop manufacturing scheduling systems, managers attempt to minimize makespan and manufacturing costs. Job overlaps are typically unavoidable in real-life applications as overlapping production shortens operation throughput times and reduces work-in-process inventories. This study presents an ant colony optimization (ACO) heuristic for establishing a simple and effective mechanism to solve the overlap manufacturing scheduling problem with various ready times and a sequentially dependent setup time. In the proposed approach, the scheduling mechanism and ACO heuristics are developed separately, thereby improving the performance of overlapping manufacturing flow by varying parameters or settings within the ACO heuristics and allowing for flexible application of manufacturing by altering scheduling criteria. Finally, the experimental results of the scheduling problem demonstrate that the ACO heuristics have good performance when searching for answers.     

An image acquisition system for real-time seam tracking

Process planning is a function that establishes the technological requirements necessary to convert a part from its raw material to the finished form. Generally, the result of process planning is delivered to the workshop to guide the manufacturing process in the form of process plan. However, a part always has multi alternative process plans for the processing means and techniques are not unique, therefore, optimization and selection of process plans is an important task of flexible process planning. In this paper, the flexibility of process planning and the AND/OR network adopted to represent the flexibility of process plans were described, and a mathematical model for the optimization of flexible process planning based on the AND/OR network was established. On this basis, a new heuristic method, called cross-entropy (CE) approach, was proposed to optimize flexible process planning. In order to facilitate the implementation of the CE-based approach, the new sample representation and probability distribution parameter were introduced; meanwhile, the new sample generation mechanism was presented and the updating expression of probability distribution parameter was deduced. Case studies, used for comparing this approach with genetic algorithm (GA) and genetic programming (GP)-based approach, were discussed to indicate the performance and adaptability of the proposed CE-based approach in terms of the solution quality and computational efficiency of the algorithm. The results show that the CE-based approach is effective for the optimization research of flexible process planning.     

Scheduling of Flexible-Sequenced Process Plans in a Mould Manufacturing Shop

Process planning and scheduling used to be two very separate processes. However, owing to the recognition of the intricate relationship between them, recent work has focused on integrating the two processes. The use of flexible process plans in scheduling allows more flexibility in production and thus gives substantial cost savings. It also increases the solution space of the optimisation problem and makes it more critical to have an effective optimisation algorithm than for traditional scheduling problems. This paper describes a process-planning and scheduling system that makes use of the branch and bound approach to optimise priority weighted earliness of jobs scheduled in a mould manufacturing shop. Instead of consideing a flexible manufacturing system, this paper focuses on the demands of less integrated factories, which are especially typical of mould manufacturing shops. The layout of the system, the methodology of the algorithm and effectiveness of performance measures for real industrial use are discussed in the paper.     

A hybrid multi-objective GA for simultaneous scheduling of machines and AGVs in FMS

A carefully designed and efficiently managed material handling system plays an important role in planning and operation of a flexible manufacturing system. Most of the researchers have addressed machine and vehicle scheduling as two independent problems and most of the research has been emphasized only on single objective optimization. Multiobjective problems in scheduling with conflicting objectives are more complex and combinatorial in nature and hardly have a unique solution. This paper addresses multiobjective scheduling problems in a flexible manufacturing environment using evolutionary algorithms. In this paper the authors made an attempt to consider simultaneously the machine and vehicle scheduling aspects in an FMS and addressed the combined problem for the minimization of makespan, mean flow time and mean tardiness objectives.     

Dispatching, routing, and scheduling of two automated guided vehicles in a flexible manufacturing system

This article presents a new approach for planning the dispatching, conflict-free routing, and scheduling of automated guided vehicles in a flexible manufacturing system. The problem is solved optimally in an integrated manner, contrary to the traditional approach in which the problem is decomposed in three steps that are solved sequentially. The algorithm is based on dynamic programming and is solved on a rolling time horizon. Three dominance criteria are used to limit the size of the state space. The method finds the transportation plan minimizing the makespan (the completion time for all the tasks). Various results are discussed. A heuristic version of the algorithm is also proposed for an extension of the method to many vehicles.