A review of multi-criterion approaches to FMS scheduling problems

An increasing number of organizations are implementing Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs) to achieve competitive advantage. The implementation process can be viewed in a hierarchical perspective: ranging from design problems at the top level to scheduling and control programs at the lower level. In recent years, researchers have focused a significant amount of attention on FMS scheduling problems. However, the major share of those studies considered FMS scheduling in the context of a single performance criterion. Though several researchers have synthesized the literature involving single criteria, the literature with multi-criterion approaches has not been consolidated and reviewed. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability of multi-criterion approaches to the production scheduling problems of an FMS and review the pertinent literature on FMS scheduling involving multiple objectives. Some areas for future research are also identified.