Optimisation of a flexible manufacturing system through the application of greedy knapsack heuristic

Abstract

The global manufacturing industry is currently facing intense competitive pressure that requires better efficiency, effectiveness and continuous improvement of the manufacturing systems. Production planning in flexible manufacturing systems is crucial for the efficient organisation of production resources to ensure economic effectiveness and meet schedule requirements without violating capacity constraints. The objective of this paper is to develop a cost-effective assignment of parts to a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) through the application of Greedy Knapsack heuristic. A production-planning problem was formulated, the objective function and associated constraints were stated and an Excel based tool was developed to generate solutions Greedy Knapsack heuristic. The tool would assign the best selected parts to the semi-automated FMS in an optimal manner to the production plan. The sample computational results were presented for Greedy Knapsack heuristic, and conclusions were drawn for the flexible manufacturing system.