Simultaneous scheduling of machines and tools in multimachine flexible manufacturing systems using artificial immune system algorithm

This article deals with simultaneous scheduling of machines and tools in a multimachine flexible manufacturing system to generate best optimal sequences that minimise makespan. As flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is an integrated manufacturing facility, simultaneous scheduling of different components of FMS is essential. In this research work, attempts have been made to integrate machines and tools. The aim of this article is to address combined machine and tool scheduling in a FMS consisting of machines and a central tool magazine. Four heuristics, priority dispatching rules, modified nondelay schedule generation algorithm with six different priority dispatching rules, modified Giffler and Thompson algorithm and artificial immune system (AIS) algorithm, have been proposed for solving combined machine and tool problems with makespan as objective. The proposed heuristics are numerically tested on various problems and the results are compared. The result shows that AIS algorithm yields better results for simultaneous scheduling of machines and tools.