Process route and layout design method for reconfigurable manufacturing systems

To accelerate and rationalize the reconfiguration process of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems(RMS),a novel method of process route and layout design was proposed.Firstly,a directed network model of process planning based on graph theory was constructed.Dijkstra algorithm was applied to select the optimal process route in the established network model,while the two-way search algorithm was utilized to select the alternative ones.Subsequently,the manufacturing system layout was designed based on queuing theory to obtain system layout scheme for RMS.An example was provided to illustrate how to use the proposed approach.The results showed that the proposed design method could adapt to the dynamic characteristics of RMS and enhance utilization rate of existing resources in manufacturing systems.