Evaluation of Tool Allocation Strategies in Flexible Manufacturing System ∗

The unprecedented challenges such as massive customizations and unstable demands require the manufacturing systems to be more flexible in responding marketplace changes and the system disturbances. In flexible manufacturing system, tool allocation strategy which involves tool planning in the system and scheduling of parts and tools can strongly affect the system efficiency. Considering the basic flows in FMS, a part-centric tool allocation strategy and a tool-centric tool allocation strategy are proposed. Generally, the part-centric allocation strategy involves few tool movements and the tool-centric allocation strategy involves few part movements. In this paper, the solution methods for the tool planning problem and the scheduling problem are proposed for both tool allocation strategies. Considering tool amount constraint, their performances are evaluated by simulations to compare their characteristics under different production conditions.