Scheduling a Flexible Manufacturing System with Tooling Constraints: An Actual Case Study

Material handling and the provision of supporting resources, particularly tools, in flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) can constrain production. To improve the productivity for an existing FMS, we first developed a simulation model that included constraints arising from material handling and tool management. Detailed simulations of the FMS showed that a simple set of heuristic rules could produce several alternative schedules of nearly optimum performance. They also showed that when the flow of tooling was considered the FMS was operating near or over capacity. The goal of the study—to generate slack production time for the manufacture of additional parts—was unachievable. Clearly companies must consider the constraints arising from material handling and the flow of supporting resources in scheduling, yet these constraints have seldom been considered in simulations of FMSs.