A GRASP algorithm for the Integration of Process Planning and Scheduling in a flexible job-shop Online publication date: Mon, 15-Feb-2010
by M. Rajkumar, P. Asokan, T. Page, S. Arunachalam
International Journal of Manufacturing Research (IJMR), Vol. 5, No. 2, 2010
Abstract: The Integration of Process Planning and Scheduling (IPPS) is an important research issue in achieving optimum manufacturing processes. In IPPS, vast search spaces and complex technical constraints prove to be significant barriers to the effectiveness of the processes. This paper proposes a Greedy Randomised Adaptive Search Procedures (GRASP) algorithm for the integration of process planning with production scheduling in a flexible job-shop environment. The GRASP algorithm is a metaheuristic characterised by multiple initialisations. Basically, it comprises two phases: construction phase and local search phase. For this work, the construction phase is considered through computational experiments. The performance of the presented algorithm is evaluated and compared with benchmark problem and the results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is an effective and practical approach for the flexible job-shop. [Received 24 April 2009; Revised 14 October 2009; Accepted 5 November 2009]
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