INTEGRATION OF PROCESS PLANNING & SCHEDULING . FUNCTIONS IN MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

Abstract

It has been recognised that planning in a manufacturing system is vital in achieving the ultimate goal of integrated factories. Planning is not only an important link between design and manufacturing in a production environment but is also a decisive-factor which distinguishes a smooth running factory from a chaotic one. Scheduling on the other hand is equally important for process plan-ning. Once the schedules are released to the shop floor, the vagaries of real world would mean that schedules becomes less relevant, as time proceeds - machine breakdowns, batches are scrapped, people fail to report for the work and so on. The drastic change in market demands, rapid technological devel-opment has created a need for more flexible production system and more complex products with large degree of variations. Thus the role of process plan-ning a-nd scheduling function becomes important to meet the flexibility in production trend. This work presents a methodology for integration of Real time computer aided process planning and scheduling in FMS. Petrinets have been used for modeling of system and representing alternate process plans while branch and bound technique is used for generating the schedules. Process plans are evaluated using Fuzzy Set theory.