Article ID: | iaor19952037 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 7 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 127 |
End Page Number: | 146 |
Publication Date: | Apr 1995 |
Journal: | International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems |
Authors: | Tetzlaff Ulrich A.W. |
Keywords: | programming: mathematical, queues: applications |
This paper presents a mathematical programming model to help select equipment for a flexible manufacturing system, i.e., the selection of the types and numbers of CNC machines, washing stations, load/unload stations, transportation vehicles, and pallets. The objective is to minimize equipment costs and work-in-process inventory cost, while fulfilling production requirements for an average period. Queueing aspects and part flow interactions are considered with the help of a Jacksonian-type closed queueing network model in order to evaluate the system’s performance. Since the related decision problem of the present model can be shown to be NP-complete, the proposed solution procedure is based on implicit enumeration. Four bounds are provided, two lower and two upper bounds. A tight lower bound is obtained by linearizing the model through the application of asymptotic bound analysis. Furthermore, asymptotic bound analysis allows the calculation of a lower bound for the number of pallets in the system. The first upper bound is given by the best feasible solution and the second is based on the anti-star-shaped form of the throughput function.