Real-Time Manipulation of Alternative Routeings in Flexible Manufacturing Systems: A Simulation Study

This paper presents the results of a simulation study of a typical flexible manufacturing system (FMS) that has routeing flexibility. The objective is this study is to test the effectiveness of the dissimilarity maximisation method (DMM) for real-time FMS scheduling. DMM is an alternative process plan selection method developed for routeing selection in off-line FMS sched-uling. An integrated framework that consists of a computer simulation model, which mimics a physical system, a C++ module, and a linear program solver is used to evaluate the effects of various operational control rules on the system performance. The hypothetical FMS employed in this study consists of seven machining centres, a loading and an unloading area, and six different part types. Owing to the existence of identical machining centres in the system, the part types have alternative routeings. For selecting an incoming part and later routeing it to a machining centre for its next operation, three control rules, namely, first-in first-out/first available (FIFO/FA), equal probability loading (EPL), and dissimilarity maximisation method/first-in first-out (DMM/ FIFO) are used. In this study, DMM is 1. Used as a real-time decision-making tool to select routeings for the parts that are in the system. 2. Tested and benchmarked against FIFO/FA and EPL. The results show that DMM/FIFO outperforms FIFO/FA and EPL on system throughput. Other measures such as average waiting time, average transportation time, and percentage utilisation rates are also investigated to provide insights for the effectiveness of the DMM rule for real-time FMS control applications.