Experimental investigation of flexible manufacturing system scheduling decision rules

Abstract

This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation of scheduling decision rules for a dedicated flexible manufacturing system. A simulation model of an existing flexible manufacturing system (FMS) comprised of 16 computer numerical controlled machines (CNC) was constructed using actual operation routings and machining times to evaluate the performance of various part loading and routing procedures. The results indicate that FMS performance is significantly affected by the choice of heuristic parts scheduling rules.