Proposed Routing Decision Making Methods for Reconfigurable Manufacturing System Production Planning

Production planning is the effective organization of resources, processes, and schedules in a manufacturing system to achieve optimal resource utilization and timely product delivery. Routing is an important part of production planning as it determines the best path or sequence of operations for a product as it progresses through manufacturing. A Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) consists of modular machines with basic and auxiliary modules which provides more flexibility allowing the structure and configuration of manufacturing facilities to be reconfigured quickly in response to changing production requirements. Routing of job addresses system-level design problems for RMS. Despite the importance of routing decisions in RMS, fewer research efforts have been directed at the selection methods for optimal routes. Optimal routing selection allows for quick reconfiguration of processes and resources to meet changing demands, and reduces cycle time, lead time, and production costs. This paper focuses on developing computational methods for routing selection, considering the availability of alternative process routes for job processing. Two computational approaches, Minimum Processing Time (MPT) and Minimum Module (MM), are introduced for RMS routing. These methodologies are implemented in a case study, followed by a comparative analysis to evaluate the impact of the proposed approaches on routing decisions.