Multi Objective Scheduling of Jobs in Flexible Manufacturing System Using Metaheuristic Approaches with Inclusion of Simulation Modeling

Abstract

Manufacturing industries play a vital role in defining the growth and development of a nation. More often than not the health of manufacturing industries is a direct reflection on the economic health and prosperity of a nation. The viability and profitability of any industry depends on how easily and quickly the industry is adapting itself to changes in demand. To adapt quickly to the changes an industry must be lean, flexible and should be capable of utilizing the existing resources to optimum. Optimum utilization of resources can only be possible if there is a proper scheduling system in place. The main objective of this paper is to study the scheduling problems in FMS environment with primary emphasis on metaheuristic approaches and also describes the development of a simulation model for production planning personnel to carry out optimization of scheduling in FMS environment. To illustrate the study in detail, a flexible manufacturing system consisting of 6 Machines producing 3 different parts through 3 different setup of machines and in each setup, 3 alternative routes are considered for this work. The optimization of scheduling process by using Bacterial Foraging optimization algorithm (BFOA, Genetic algorithm (GA) and Differential Evolution (DE) and choose the best for the scenario. In order to impress upon the industry management to take proper decision about the significance of the proposed changes, the best setup and schedule as suggested by metaheuristic approach has been modeled by using the Promodel software and simulated for various runs.