The objective of this Engineering Initiation Award research project is to develop methodologies for the investigation of characteristics of fast, reliable and implementable FMS scheduling techniques. A family of algorithms based on controlled sampling from the set of active schedules will be defined. Behavior of the algorithms will be investigated using analytical techniques and digital simulation. The analyses will be performed to reveal the characterization of efficient schedules with respect to tardiness, utilization and congestion, and cost related scheduling criteria as well as sensitivity of schedules to changes in flexibility and availability of resources in flexible manufacturing systems. The proposed research is expected to enhance the understanding of scheduling in flexible manufacturing systems, provide new insights for the study of manufacturing systems, and lead to development of new problem solving methodologies.
