Flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) are nowadays installed in the mechanical industry. In such systems. many different part types are produced simultaneously and it is necessary to take tooling constraints into account for finding an optimal schedule. A heuristic method is presented for solving the m-machine, n-job shop scheduling problem with tooling constraints. This method. named TOMATO, i...

The production scheduling process in manufacturing systems is a complex problem in which finding a suitable production scheduling can extremely increase the effectiveness of highly flexible production processes. Nevertheless, this high flexibility makes the production scheduling and acquisition of relevant data quite complicated. Therefore, there is a strong demand for a universal and flexible ...

This paper explains the rationale for the development of reconfigurable manufacturing systems, which possess the advantages both of dedicated lines and of flexible systems. The paper defines the core characteristics and design principles of reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) and describes the structure recommended for practical RMS with RMS core characteristics. After that, a rigorous m...

Flexibility and adaptability are essential properties of intelligent manufacturing systems. However, it is a major challenge to realize these properties and it is expensive to develop prototypes that are authentic and at the same time useful with respect to integration of state-of-the-art technologies in the area of agents and artificial intelligence. The use of cheap and flexible but yet reali...

Some recent trends in manufacturing in particular and business in general, lead to new approaches regarding the organisation and software architecture, mainly adopting distributed solutions. Such organisations imply organisational and technological evolution through agility, distribution, decentralisation, reactivity and flexibility. New organisational and technological paradigms are needed in ...

Their light weight, low-cost manufacturing, ease of fabrication, and the availability of inex‐ pensive flexible substrates (i.e.: papers, textiles, and plastics) make flexible electronics an ap‐ pealing candidate for the next generation of consumer electronics [2]. Moreover, recent developments in miniaturized and flexible energy storage and self-powered wireless com‐ ponents paved the road for...

Flexible manufacturing system (FMS) scheduling is one of the most trusted and complicated task in machine scheduling. It is strongly Non polynomial complete combinatorial problem. FMS is agile and flexible which is well suited for simultaneous production of a wide variety of product mix in low volumes. Meta-heuristic approaches such as genetic algorithm, simulated annealing etc. are widely appl...

Flexible manufacturing is a relatively new concept in manufacturing where the plant is given many different types of products in very small lot sizes to manufacture. This type of highly flexible manufacturing plant is dynamically changing at a must faster pace than traditional manufacturing plants. As such new highly adaptive planning algorithms have been studied in the attempt to utilize the f...