Suitable switching policies for FMS scheduling

Switching server, otherwise known as hybrid dynamical approaches can be used highly effectively to solve flexible manufacturing systems scheduling problems. Papers published in this field have accepted that the demand rates determining the production tasks have some given values. In the present paper it is shown that the demand rates should be selected from some given domains. The "control variables" to realize suitable processes are the switching policies, and the demand rates. These uniquely determine the processes through the switching time sequences. In the present paper, two variants: the single machine processing, and the multiple machine processing cases are analyzed. It is very problematic to use continuously coupled parts flows for stable and effective production. To eliminate this difficulty, in the present paper, the method called controlled buffer technique is proposed, which uses the opportunity that the computer controlled "virtual buffers" can be filled up before the regular working time, and used for part flow compensation. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd.