Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, 1997:
Proceedings of the Seventh International FAIM Conference

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-089-4

ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-442-7

AN OPEN OPTIMIZATION SYSTEM FOR CONTROLLING OF MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

DOI: 10.1615/FAIM1997.250
pages 261-268

Abstrakt

A lot of scheduling problems of flexible manufacturing processes can be described as combinatorial optimization problems. The sequence optimization problem, which asks for an optimal sequence of products, is a well known example. Although many different scheduling techniques were developed in the past, the application of them is very difficult. In our opinion the optimization of scheduling only can be solved satisfactorily in combination with methods of simulation which guarantee the required high flexibility of the optimization system. We describe in this paper an approach for an open optimization system, where the optimization cycle consists of two independent parts - the simulation and the search algorithm. The easy replacement of these parts is the advantage of the open architecture. So it is possible to combine several simulation systems and optimization algorithms in the same system and to use it as a experimental environment for examining new optimization strategies. Some optimization algorithms were already examined e.g. Genetic Search Algorithms and Tabu Search. The practical test will be carried out in the field of electronic production.