The Automated Sorter Scheduling in a Logistic Cim System by Use of Ga

There is no production system without having a logistic CIM system, now. The more the hardware equipment is developed for the logistic CIM, the more the logistic CIM is automated and integrated by them. As comparing the software system with the hardware one, the software system, which totally manages the hardware equipment, is behind the hardware system. An automated shipping sorter is one of such hardware equipment recently developed. It assorts the products with accordance to the delivery order requested by customers and the assorted products are stored into a flow type of warehouse. In order to control the automated shipping sorter efficiently, three types of problems occur simultaneously. The first is a factory assignment problem to the shipping sorter input gate. The second is a customer assignment problem to the shipping sorter exit gate. The products requested by customers are packed into bins at many shipping sorter gates to deliver them to the customers. The last one is a scheduling problem of the product sequence flown from the input gate. Solutions of two assignment problems have an important effect on the last scheduling problem. A genetic algorithm is employed to overcome this sophisticated problem. This paper reports on how to apply the genetic algorithm to solve three problems, simultaneously. Numerical experiments are performed to compare the proposed method with other methods including heuristic one. Results verify that the proposed method gives scheduling practical enough to operate an automated shipping sorter.