An integrated approach to the part selection and machine loading problem in a class of flexible manufacturing systems

Part selection and machine loading are two major, interrelated production planning problems in flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs). The two problems have been treated separately in most of the previous research work, thereby rendering the entire solution less meaningful because of possible conflicts between the two sets of individually obtained solutions. To avoid such inconsistencies, this paper presents an integrated approach to simultaneously solve part selection and machine loading problems in a class of FMSs. Associated bicriterion models have been developed to implement this approach and to take advantage of productivity and flexibility which an FMS can offer. A Lagrangian relaxation based solution method, incorporating the decomposition principle and column generation scheme, is developed. Computational experience is also presented for several sets of test problems.