Process selection and sequencing in a two-agents production system

This paper addresses a coordination problem concerning two production agents in a manufacturing system. The two agents have a set of processes which must be carried out on some common resource. They can use the resource individually, but in general there may be an overall advantage in concurrently performing certain processes. The problem is to select concurrent processes and to sequence them with the aim of minimizing the total number of set-ups. In particular, a decomposition approach is proposed, in which first the concurrent processes are selected, by solving a generalized network flow problem, and then an optimal process sequencing is efficiently found.