Integration of Process Planning and Scheduling Functions for Batch Manufacturing

Process planning and scheduling are the two main functions in a batch manufacturing where the former is the input to the latter. The integration of process planning and scheduling makes way for the effective use of production resources and creation of realistic process plans that can be readily executed with less modifications in a computer integrated manufacturing system. In this paper we propose a method that fills the gap between these two functions and integrates them dynamically. The system consists of three modules, i.e., the process planning module, scheduling module and the facilitator module. The process planning module is optimisation-based and the scheduling module is based on heuristic algorithms. The facilitator module acts as an integrator and provides feedback to the process planning module in the form of constraints on available resources, which have to be satisfied by the process plans. Here we present the overall approach of integration and the details of the proposed modules.