A comparative study of three tool replacement/operation sequencing strategies in a flexible manufacturing system

This paper studies three tool replacement/operation sequencing strategies for a flexible manufacturing system over a finite time horizon: (1) failure replacement – replace the tool only upon failure, (2) optimal preventive tool replacement for a fixed sequence of operations, and (3) joint scheduling of the optimal preventive tool replacement times and the optimal sequence of operations. Stochastic dynamic decision models are used for strategies 2 and 3. The optimization criterion for strategies 2 and 3 is the minimization of the total expected cost over the finite time horizon. We will show through numerical studies that, with the same amount of information, the total expected costs can be reduced considerably by choosing an optimal strategy. Our conclusion is that in flexible manufacturing, optimal tool replacement and optimal operations sequencing are not separate issues. They should be considered jointly to minimize the expected total cost.