A look-ahead routing procedure in an FMS

Many dispatching rules have been developed for the on-line control of product flow in a job shop. The introduction of a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) has added a new requirement to a classical job shop control problem: the selection of machines by parts of different types. An FMS can keep a great deal of information on the status of the system, such as information on what is scheduled in the near future, with great accuracy. For example, the knowledge of the time when the next part will arrive at each machine can be beneficial for the routing. This paper tests the effect of the use of this knowledge for part routing on the parts flow time (sum of the time for waiting and service) under a simple routing procedure – a look-ahead routing procedure. A test under many operating conditions shows that the reduction of part flow time from the cases without using this information is between 1% and 11%, which justifies more study on this routing procedure at real production sites when machine capacity is a critical issue. The test results of this paper are also valid for other highly automated systems such as the semi-conductor fabrication plants for routing when the arrivals of parts in the near future are known.