Performance Analysis of a Flexible Manufacturing System

A typical Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) has been studied under Planning Design and Control (PDC) strategies. The chief objective is to test the impact of design strategy (routing flexibility) on system performance under planning strategy (alternate system load condition) with control strategies (sequencing and dispatching rules). A computer simulation model is developed to evaluate the effects of aforementioned strategies on the make-span time, which is taken as the system performance measure. Shortest Processing Time (SPT), Maximum Balance Processing Time (MBPT) are the sequencing rules for selecting the part from the input buffer whereas for machine selection the dispatching rules are Minimum Number of parts in the Queue (MINQ), and Minimum queue with Minimum Waiting Time of all parts in the Queue (MQMWT). In this paper, the same manufacturing system is modeled under four different system load conditions. These load conditions are Full Balanced Load (FBL), Balanced Machine Load and Unbalanced Processing Time (BMLUPT), Unbalanced Machine Load and Balanced Processing Time (UMLBPT) and Unbalanced Load (UBL) with respect to machine load and processing time. The result of the simulation shows that there is continuous reduction in make-span with increase in routing flexibility when both machine load and processing times are unbalanced i.e., under UBL system condition.