Integration of Process Planning and Scheduling in the Manufacturing Sector to Enhance Productivity – a Case study of Developing Countries

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.This thesis describes research carried out to investigate and address the problems associated with integration of process planning and scheduling through collaboration between diverse functions within manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Collaboration is an emerging necessity for functions of manufacturing companies in developing countries and has been influenced by the evolving need for gathering segmented groups with diverse knowledge and experience in developing new solutions to support addressing complex problems in a domain. Use of new technologies, to some extent, assists interaction and collaboration between segregated functions. This approach has been a feasible solution for real-time communication in virtual environment, however, functional boundaries influence the recognition of the problem-related factors affecting different functions in a domain and results in conflicts of perspectives and ineffective interaction between functions. The study carried out here investigated the limitations of existing approaches to manufacturing with a view to engaging segregated functions by integration of process planning and scheduling functions and thereby develop a new approach to address a key manufacturing company’s complex problem. Consequently, this thesis addresses the research question “How do we minimise the limitations to existing manufacturing approaches which integrate process planning and scheduling in developing countries?”. In doing so, this research brings together current literature on manufacturing systems and empirical evidence to investigate the factors that influence the effectiveness of integration of process planning and scheduling through collaborations with different functions. Review of the existing approaches to integration of process planning and scheduling and the limitations of each approach shows that the effectiveness of this integration has not been fully achieved. This resulted in developing, refining and validating a new approach to integration of process planning and scheduling which was applied in different manufacturing companies. The study resulted in significant contributions to knowledge and benefits for the manufacturing companies involved. A key contribution is development of a new approach to integration of process planning and scheduling called EC-FIKT which emphasises Effective Communication through Facilitated Information and Knowledge Transfer. The applications of EC-FIKT in the field suggest that it eliminates some of the main deficiencies of well-known approaches to integration of process planning and scheduling, and which brings additional benefits to manufacturing companies. The research has also identified areas where there is significant scope for further research and investigation

Integration of Process Planning and Scheduling in the Manufacturing Sector to Enhance Productivity – a Case study of Developing Countries

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.This thesis describes research carried out to investigate and address the problems associated with integration of process planning and scheduling through collaboration between diverse functions within manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Collaboration is an emerging necessity for functions of manufacturing companies in developing countries and has been influenced by the evolving need for gathering segmented groups with diverse knowledge and experience in developing new solutions to support addressing complex problems in a domain. Use of new technologies, to some extent, assists interaction and collaboration between segregated functions. This approach has been a feasible solution for real-time communication in virtual environment, however, functional boundaries influence the recognition of the problem-related factors affecting different functions in a domain and results in conflicts of perspectives and ineffective interaction between functions. The study carried out here investigated the limitations of existing approaches to manufacturing with a view to engaging segregated functions by integration of process planning and scheduling functions and thereby develop a new approach to address a key manufacturing company’s complex problem. Consequently, this thesis addresses the research question “How do we minimise the limitations to existing manufacturing approaches which integrate process planning and scheduling in developing countries?”. In doing so, this research brings together current literature on manufacturing systems and empirical evidence to investigate the factors that influence the effectiveness of integration of process planning and scheduling through collaborations with different functions. Review of the existing approaches to integration of process planning and scheduling and the limitations of each approach shows that the effectiveness of this integration has not been fully achieved. This resulted in developing, refining and validating a new approach to integration of process planning and scheduling which was applied in different manufacturing companies. The study resulted in significant contributions to knowledge and benefits for the manufacturing companies involved. A key contribution is development of a new approach to integration of process planning and scheduling called EC-FIKT which emphasises Effective Communication through Facilitated Information and Knowledge Transfer. The applications of EC-FIKT in the field suggest that it eliminates some of the main deficiencies of well-known approaches to integration of process planning and scheduling, and which brings additional benefits to manufacturing companies. The research has also identified areas where there is significant scope for further research and investigation

The Review of Mark Planning Problem

Mark planning is one of the most important planning processes in garment industry. The major function is to generate a set of markers which is used as cutting guidelines or cutting templates in a cutting process. In other words, this process can be seen as a planning step of a cutting process which determines what sequence and how many parts will be cut. For the academic point of view, mark planning has been of interests for more than 15 years. Many papers were published with various objective functions, problem scenarios, and constraints. Therefore, a summarization of these papers representing key contents of each paper will be useful for researchers who are interested in this type of problem. The purpose of this paper is to introduce an exhaustive review of mark planning papers which is composed of three sections: the relevant background, the summary of papers, and the relationship between objective functions which is cost combinations and major garment characteristics. In conclusion, future researches should go forward the trend of integration between this process and other relevant processes in the production chain, e.g. cut scheduling, assembly planning, marker making

Guidelines for the deployment and implementation of manufacturing scheduling systems

It has frequently been stated that there exists a gap between production scheduling theory and practice. In order to put theoretical findings into practice, advances in scheduling models and solution procedures should be embedded into a piece of software - a scheduling system - in companies. This results in a process that entails (1) determining its functional features, and (2) adopting a successful strategy for its development and deployment. In this paper we address the latter question and review the related literature in order to identify descriptions and recommendations of the main aspects to be taken into account when developing such systems. These issues are then discussed and classified, resulting in a set of guidelines that can help practitioners during the process of developing and deploying a scheduling system. 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Project Controls and Management Systems : current practice and how it has changed over the past decade

Project Controls and Management System (PCMS) refers to an ecosystem of processes, tools and personnel required for the proper planning and execution of capital projects throughout the different phases of design, procurement, construction and startup. This can be divided into different focus areas (functions) that would include Estimating, Planning, Scheduling, Cost Control, Change Management, Progressing, and Forecasting. Various trends such as globalization, contractor specialization and information technology developments have impacted the way PCMS are implemented and made it the subject of extensive research over the past years to investigate how to best utilize those trends. Replicating the research methodology used in a 2011 report published by the Construction Research Institute (CII), this work aims to investigate the current status of PCMS implementation and how it has changed over the past decade. It was concluded that while the original PCMS principles are still valid, adoption has drastically changed in terms of efficiency for the majority of the functions. The research also identifies areas of potential concerns and provides recommendations for further improvement.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

The Integration of Process Planning and Shop Floor Scheduling in Small Batch Part Manufacturing

In this paper we explore possibilities to cut manufacturing leadtimes and to improve delivery performance in a small batch part manufacturing shop by integrating process planning and shop floor scheduling. Using a set of initial process plans (one for each order in the shop), we exploit a resource decomposition procedure to determine schedules to determine schedules which minimize the maximum lateness, given these process plans. If the resulting schedule is still unsatisfactory, a critical path analysis is performed to select jobs as candidates for alternative process plans. In this way, an excellent due date performance can be achieved, with a minimum of process planning and scheduling effort

The relevance of outsourcing and leagile strategies in performance optimization of an integrated process planning and scheduling

Over the past few years growing global competition has forced the manufacturing industries to upgrade their old production strategies with the modern day approaches. As a result, recent interest has been developed towards finding an appropriate policy that could enable them to compete with others, and facilitate them to emerge as a market winner. Keeping in mind the abovementioned facts, in this paper the authors have proposed an integrated process planning and scheduling model inheriting the salient features of outsourcing, and leagile principles to compete in the existing market scenario. The paper also proposes a model based on leagile principles, where the integrated planning management has been practiced. In the present work a scheduling problem has been considered and overall minimization of makespan has been aimed. The paper shows the relevance of both the strategies in performance enhancement of the industries, in terms of their reduced makespan. The authors have also proposed a new hybrid Enhanced Swift Converging Simulated Annealing (ESCSA) algorithm, to solve the complex real-time scheduling problems. The proposed algorithm inherits the prominent features of the Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA), and the Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC). The ESCSA algorithm reduces the makespan significantly in less computational time and number of iterations. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm has been shown by comparing the results with GA, SA, Tabu, and hybrid Tabu-SA optimization methods

A software architecture for autonomous maintenance scheduling: Scenarios for UK and European Rail

A new era of automation in rail has begun offering developments in the operation and maintenance of industry standard systems. This article documents the development of an architecture and range of scenarios for an autonomous system for rail maintenance planning and scheduling. The Unified Modelling Language (UML) has been utilized to visualize and validate the design of the prototype. A model for information exchange between prototype components and related maintenance planning systems is proposed in this article. Putting forward an architecture and set of usage mode scenarios for the proposed system, this article outlines and validates a viable platform for autonomous planning and scheduling in rail

Suggestions to Improve Lean Construction Planning

The Last Planner System® has been one of the most popular lean construction tools that offers a solution to tackle the problems of production management on construction sites. Since its inception almost 20 years ago, construction companies across the world have implemented Last Planner with reported success. However, even as Last Planner was originally designed to address some shortcomings of the CPM method, a particular shortcoming – namely task continuity was not addressed directly. Also, excepting PPC and Reasons for Non Completion charts, there are no explicit visual tools offered by the Last Planner system. On the other hand, Line of Balance based approaches intrinsically support the consideration of task continuity, and offer a basic visual management approach in schedule representation. With some exceptions, Line of Balance is seen as a special technique applicable only in linear or repetitive work based schedules. The authors suggest that i) there is a need for a robust theory of planning and scheduling and ii) there is a need for a more suitable approach that addresses critical aspects of planning and scheduling function for example by integrating Line of Balance and Last Planner to provide a more robust support for construction scheduling