Intelligent scheduling of automated machining systems

An automated machining system involves concurrent use of manufacturing resources, alternative process plans and flexible routings. High investment in the installation of automated facilities requires an efficient scheduling system that is able to allocate the resources specified for operations over a scheduling horizon. The primary emphasis of this paper is to generate schedules that accurately reflect details of the automated environment and the objectives stated for the system. In this paper, a rule for dispatching operations, named the Most Dissimilar Resources (MDR) dispatching rule, is introduced. A scheduling algorithm for automated machining is presented. Using the previous simulation research for this topic, a rule-based scheduling system is constructed. An architecture for an intelligent scheduling system is proposed, and the system has a high potential to provide efficient schedules based on the task-specific knowledge for the dynamic scheduling environment.