A new bounding mechanism for the CNC machine scheduling problems with controllable processing times

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In this study, we determine the upper and lower bounds for the processing time of each job under controllable machining conditions. The proposed bounding scheme is used to find a set of discrete efficient points on the efficient frontier for a bi-criteria scheduling problem on a single CNC machine. We have two objectives; minimizing the manufacturing cost (comprised of machining and tooling costs) and minimizing makespan. The technological restrictions of the CNC machine along with the job specific parameters affect the machining conditions; such as cutting speed and feed rate, which in turn specify the processing times and tool lives. Since it is well known that scheduling problems are extremely sensitive to processing time data, system resources can be utilized much more efficiently by selecting processing times appropriately. 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Single CNC machine scheduling with controllable processing times to minimize total weighted tardiness

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Advanced manufacturing technologies, such as CNC machines, require significant investments, but also offer new capabilities to the manufacturers. One of the important capabilities of a CNC machine is the controllable processing times. By using this capability, the due date requirements of customers can be satisfied much more effectively. Processing times of the jobs on a CNC machine can be easily controlled via machining conditions such that they can be increased or decreased at the expense of tooling cost. Since scheduling decisions are very sensitive to the processing times, we solve the process planning and scheduling problems simultaneously. In this study, we consider the problem of scheduling a set of jobs on a single CNC machine to minimize the sum of total weighted tardiness, tooling and machining costs. We formulated the joint problem, which is NP-hard since the total weighted tardiness problem (with fixed processing times) is strongly NP-hard alone, as a nonlinear mixed integer program. We proposed a DP-based heuristic to solve the problem for a given sequence and designed a local search algorithm that uses it as a base heuristic

An anticipative scheduling approach with controllable processing times

In practice, machine schedules are usually subject to disruptions which have to be repaired by reactive scheduling decisions. The most popular predictive approach in project management and machine scheduling literature is to leave idle times (time buffers) in schedules in coping with disruptions, i.e. the resources will be under-utilized. Therefore, preparing initial schedules by considering possible disruption times along with rescheduling objectives is critical for the performance of rescheduling decisions. In this paper, we show that if the processing times are controllable then an anticipative approach can be used to form an initial schedule so that the limited capacity of the production resources are utilized more effectively. To illustrate the anticipative scheduling idea, we consider a non-identical parallel machining environment, where processing times can be controlled at a certain compression cost. When there is a disruption during the execution of the initial schedule, a match-up time strategy is utilized such that a repaired schedule has to catch-up initial schedule at some point in future. This requires changing machine–job assignments and processing times for the rest of the schedule which implies increased manufacturing costs. We show that making anticipative job sequencing decisions, based on failure and repair time distributions and flexibility of jobs, one can repair schedules by incurring less manufacturing cost. Our computational results show that the match-up time strategy is very sensitive to initial schedule and the proposed anticipative scheduling algorithm can be very helpful to reduce rescheduling costs

Time/cost trade-offs in machine scheduling with controllable processing times

Ankara : The Department of Industrial Engineering and the Institute of Engineering and Science of Bilkent University, 2008.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Bilkent University, 2008.Includes bibliographical references leaves 166-175Processing time controllability is a critical aspect in scheduling decisions since most of the scheduling practice in industry allows controlling processing times. A very well known example is the computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines in flexible manufacturing systems. Selected processing times for a given set of jobs determine the manufacturing cost of the jobs and strongly affect their scheduling performance. Hence, when making processing time and scheduling decisions at the same time, one must consider both the manufacturing cost and the scheduling performance objectives. In this thesis, we have studied such bicriteria scheduling problems in various scheduling environments including single, parallel and non-identical parallel machine environments. We have included some regular scheduling performance measures such as total weighted completion time and makespan. We have considered the convex manufacturing cost function of CNC turning operation. We have provided alternative methods to find efficient solutions in each problem. We have particularly focused on the single objective problems to get efficient solutions, called the -constraint approach. We have provided efficient formulations for the problems and shown useful properties which led us to develop fast heuristics to generate set of efficient solutions. In this thesis, taking another point of view, we have also studied a conic quadratic reformulation of a machine-job assignment problem with controllable processing times. We have considered a convex compression cost function for each job and solved a profit maximization problem. The convexity of cost functions is a major source of difficulty in finding optimal integer solutions in this problem, but our strengthened conic reformulation has eliminated this difficulty. Our reformulation approach is sufficiently general so that it can also be applied to other mixed 0-1 optimization problems with separable convex cost functions.Our computational results demonstrate that the proposed conic reformulation is very effective for solving the machine-job assignment problem with controllable processing times to optimality. Finally, in this thesis, we have considered rescheduling with controllable processing times. In particular, we show that in contrast to fixed processing times, if we have the flexibility to control the processing times of the jobs, we can generate alternative reactive schedules in response to a disruption such as machine breakdown. We consider a non-identical parallel machining environment where processing times of the jobs are compressible at a certain cost which is a convex function of the compression on the processing time. When rescheduling, it is critical to catch up the initial schedule as soon as possible by reassigning the jobs to the machines and changing their processing times. On the other hand, one must keep the total cost of the jobs at minimum. We present alternative match-up scheduling problems dealing with this trade-off. We use the strong conic reformulation approach in solving these problems. We further provide fast heuristic algorithms.Gürel, SinanPh.D

An analysis of pure robotic cycles

Ankara : The Department of Industrial Engineering and the Institute of Engineering and Sciences of Bilkent University, 2008.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 20068Includes bibliographical references leaves 84-87.This thesis is focused on scheduling problems in robotic cells consisting of a number of CNC machines producing identical parts. We consider two different cell layouts which are in-line robotic cells and robot centered cells. The problem is to find the robot move sequence and processing times on machines minimizing the total manufacturing cost and cycle time simultaneously. The automation in manufacturing industry increased the flexibility, however it is not widely studied in the literature. The flexibility of machines enables us to process all the required operations for a part on the same machine. Furthermore, the processing times on CNC machines can be increased or decreased by changing the feed rate and cutting speed. Hence, we assume that a part is processed on one of the machines and the processing times are assumed to be controllable. The flexibility of machines results in a new class of cycles named pure cycles. We determined efficient pure cycles and corresponding processing times dominating the rest of pure cycles in the specified cycle time regions. In addition, for in-line robotic cells, the optimum number of machines is determined for given parameters.Yıldız, SerdarM.S

Scheduling parallel CNC machines with time/cost trade-off considerations

When the processing times of jobs are controllable, selected processing times affect both the manufacturing cost and the scheduling performance. A well-known example for such a case that this paper specifically deals with is the turning operation on a CNC machine. Manufacturing cost of a turning operation is a nonlinear convex function of its processing time. We also know that scheduling decisions are quite sensitive to the processing times. Therefore, this paper considers minimizing total manufacturing cost (F1) and total completion time (F2) objectives simultaneously on identical parallel CNC turning machines. Since decreasing processing time of a job increases its manufacturing cost, we cannot minimize both objectives at the same time, so the problem is to generate non-dominated solutions. We consider the problem of minimizing F1 subject to a given F2 level and give an effective formulation for the problem. For this problem, we prove some optimality properties which facilitated designing an efficient heuristic algorithm to generate approximate non-dominated solutions. Computational results show that proposed algorithm performs almost equal with the GAMS/MINOS commercial solver although it spends much less computation time. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Single CNC machine scheduling with controllable processing times and multiple due dates

In this study, we solve the single CNC machine scheduling problem with controllable processing times. Our objective is to maximize the total profit that is composed of the revenue generated by the set of scheduled jobs minus the sum of total weighted earliness and weighted tardiness, tooling and machining costs. Customers offer multiple due dates to the manufacturer, each coming with a distinct price for the order that is decreasing as the date gets later, and the manufacturer has the flexibility to accept or reject the orders. We propose a number of ranking rules and scheduling algorithms that we employ in a four-stage heuristic algorithm that determines the processing times for each job and a final schedule for the accepted jobs simultaneously, to maximize the overall profit

Stochastic lot sizing problem with controllable processing times

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In this study, we consider the stochastic capacitated lot sizing problem with controllable processing times where processing times can be reduced in return for extra compression cost. We assume that the compression cost function is a convex function as it may reflect increasing marginal costs of larger reductions and may be more appropriate when the resource life, energy consumption or carbon emission are taken into consideration. We consider this problem under static uncertainty strategy and α service level constraints. We first introduce a nonlinear mixed integer programming formulation of the problem, and use the recent advances in second order cone programming to strengthen it and then solve by a commercial solver. Our computational experiments show that taking the processing times as constant may lead to more costly production plans, and the value of controllable processing times becomes more evident for a stochastic environment with a limited capacity. Moreover, we observe that controllable processing times increase the solution flexibility and provide a better solution in most of the problem instances, although the largest improvements are obtained when setup costs are high and the system has medium sized capacities

Bicriteria robotic cell scheduling with controllable processing times

The current study deals with a bicriteria scheduling problem arising in an m-machine robotic cell consisting of CNC machines producing identical parts. Such machines by nature possess the process flexibility of altering processing times by modifying the machining conditions at differing manufacturing costs. Furthermore, they possess the operational flexibility of being capable of processing all the operations of these identical parts. This latter flexibility in turn introduced a new class of robot move cycles, called pure cycles, to the literature. Within the restricted class of pure cycles, our task is to find the processing times on machines so as to minimise the cycle time and the manufacturing cost simultaneously. We characterise the set of all non-dominated solutions for two specific pure cycles that have emerged as prominent ones in the literature. We prove that either of these pure cycles is non-dominated for the majority of attainable cycle time values. For the remaining regions, we provide the worst case performance of one of these two cycles. © 2011 Taylor & Francis

Scheduling preventive maintenance on a single CNC machine

In this study we attempt to deal with process planning, scheduling and preventive maintenance (PM) decisions, simultaneously. The objective is to minimize the total completion time of a set of jobs on a CNC machine. During the process planning, we decide on the processing times of the jobs which are controllable (i.e. they can be easily changed) on CNC machines. Using shorter processing times (higher production rates) would result in greater deterioration of the machine, and we would need to plan more frequent PM visits to the machine, during which it would not be available. Therefore, the selected processing times determine not only the completion times but also the PM visit times. We first provide optimality properties for the joint problem. We propose a new heuristic search algorithm to determine simultaneously the processing times of the jobs, their sequence and the PM schedule