A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Job scheduling and management of wearing tools with stochastic tool lifetimes
Authors: Hirvikorpi M, Knuutila T, Leipala T, Nevalainen OS
Publisher: SPRINGER
Publication year: 2007
Journal:: International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems
Journal name in source: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS
Journal acronym: INT J FLEX MANUF SYS
Volume: 19
Issue: 4
First page : 443
Last page: 462
Number of pages: 20
ISSN: 0920-6299
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10696-008-9043-y
Abstract
The problem of scheduling jobs using wearing tools is studied. Tool wearing is assumed to be stochastic and the jobs are processed in one machining centre provided with a limited capacity tool magazine. The aim is to minimize the expected average completion time of the jobs by choosing their processing order and tool management decisions wisely. All jobs are available at the beginning of the planning period. This kind of situation is met in production planning of CNC-machines. Previous studies concerning this problem have either assumed deterministic wearing for the tools or omitted the wearing completely. In our formulation of the problem, tool wearing is stochastic and the problem becomes very hard to solve analytically. A heuristic based on genetic algorithms is therefore given for the joint problem of job scheduling and tool management. The algorithm searches the most beneficial job sequence when the tool management decisions are made by a removal rule taking into account the future planned usage of the tools. The cost of each job sequence is evaluated by simulating the job processing. Empirical tests with heuristics indicate that by taking the stochastic information into account, one can reduce the average job processing time considerably.
The problem of scheduling jobs using wearing tools is studied. Tool wearing is assumed to be stochastic and the jobs are processed in one machining centre provided with a limited capacity tool magazine. The aim is to minimize the expected average completion time of the jobs by choosing their processing order and tool management decisions wisely. All jobs are available at the beginning of the planning period. This kind of situation is met in production planning of CNC-machines. Previous studies concerning this problem have either assumed deterministic wearing for the tools or omitted the wearing completely. In our formulation of the problem, tool wearing is stochastic and the problem becomes very hard to solve analytically. A heuristic based on genetic algorithms is therefore given for the joint problem of job scheduling and tool management. The algorithm searches the most beneficial job sequence when the tool management decisions are made by a removal rule taking into account the future planned usage of the tools. The cost of each job sequence is evaluated by simulating the job processing. Empirical tests with heuristics indicate that by taking the stochastic information into account, one can reduce the average job processing time considerably.