A decision support system for variable routings management in manufacturing systems

The increase in flexibility of manufacturing systems makes variations possible in routings, operations, machines or operators. These degrees of freedom may be used to react to unpredictable events such as failures or changes in the workshop environment. The paper suggests a decision support system to manage variable routings that can help in the search for solutions to mitigate the consequences of a failure and in the evaluation of these solutions. To deal with imprecise data, such as duration of maintenance, this evaluation is based on the modelization of the workshop objective, using the theory of possibility and the fuzzy logic. The system uses a data base of which the structure is briefly described. An example is depicted with an objective function based on two elementary objectives: delivery date and cost.