An automatic scheduling method for weaving enterprises based on genetic algorithm

Abstract

As the multi-varieties and small-batch production mode become more popular in weaving enterprises, the traditional manual operated scheduling exposes the disadvantages of low work efficiency and unsatisfying result. In this paper, by summarizing the weakness previous model, a more practical optimization model is developed for weaving production scheduling to reduce the schedulers’ labor. The model describes the optimization of warp beam looming schedule in weaving process based on the analysis of the schedulers’ working process in weaving enterprises. Genetic algorithm (GA) is adopted to solve the model. To improve the computational efficiency and avoid prematurity convergence of GA, the termination condition is updated and the genetic parameters are optimized based on statistical data. The improved GA with optimized parameters gets solutions superior to manual scheduling with a quicker convergence, which has great practical value.

Keywords:

• weaving manufacture
• automatic scheduling
• genetic algorithm
• warp beam
• fitness function

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 61202310]; the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [grant number BK2011156]; the Open Project Program of Key Laboratory of Eco-Textiles (Jiangnan University), Ministry of Education, China [grant number KLET 1110]; Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China [grant number 20120093130001].