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Route‐Independent Analysis of Available Capacity in Flexible Manufacturing Systems
Author(s) -
Koltai Tamás,
Stecke Kathryn E.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
production and operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.279
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1937-5956
pISSN - 1059-1478
DOI - 10.3401/poms.1080.0017
Subject(s) - computer science , capacity management , scheduling (production processes) , negotiation , production (economics) , routing (electronic design automation) , capacity planning , industrial engineering , production planning , operations research , sensitivity (control systems) , job shop , job shop scheduling , manufacturing engineering , operations management , flow shop scheduling , engineering , computer network , electronic engineering , law , political science , economics , macroeconomics , operating system
In a job shop, because of large setup times, each operation is assigned to only one machine. There is no alternative routing. In a flexible manufacturing system, each manufacturing operation can often be performed on several machines. Therefore, with automated equipment, the capacity of a machine to perform certain operations is not independent of the capacity of other machines. Often, however, operations managers can use a route‐independent answer to production planning questions. For example, how much can be produced of a certain part type and when are important capacity questions in business negotiations, when the detailed routing and scheduling are not yet of interest or cannot be known. This paper provides a mathematical model for the route‐independent analysis of the capacity of flexible manufacturing systems based on a concept of operation types. An example is provided both to illustrate the use of operation types and to highlight the differences between the traditional route‐dependent and the proposed route‐independent formulations of capacity constraints. Some computational results are also given. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is developed to analyze the feasibility of production plans when production requirements and machine capacities can change.