Describe the tool management problem in a Flexible manufactu

Describe the tool management problem in
a. Flexible manufacturing systems
b. Singlestage multimachine systems

- ( Facilities Planning 4th Edition)

Solution

Part (a).

The design and use of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) involve some intricate operations research problems.FMS design problems include, for example, determining the appropriate number of machine tools of each type, the capacity of the material handling system, and the size of buffers.FMS planning problems include the determination of which parts should be simultaneously machined, the optimal partition of machine tools into groups, allocations of pallets and fixtures to part types, and the assignment of operations and associated cutting tools among the limited-capacity tool magazines of the machine tools.FMS scheduling problems include determining the optimal input sequence of parts and an optimal sequence at each machine tool given the current part mix.FMS control problems are those concerned with, for example, monitoring the system to be sure that requirements and due dates are being met and that unreliability problems are taken care of.

Part (b)

As machine tools become more versatile, single-stage multimachine systems (SSMS) have emerged in which all the operations of a part are performed on a single machine. In this system, parts stay on a machine all through their operations while tools are delivered to the machines as requested. The performance of the system is then restricted by the tooling conditions. This paper addresses the problem of how many tools should be maintained in an SSMS under a tool sharing environment. An open queueing network-based approach is proposed which not only determines tool requirement levels but also predicts the tool waiting time given the tooling capacity. The tool life and tool delivery are taken into consideration in determining the tool requirement levels.