Optimization of the design of the flexible manufacturing system

Abstract

The design of flexible manufacturing systems is studied in this thesis. In the context of the industrial competition, the manufacturing system must be flexible in order to be able to produce, on the same line or platform, several types of products with varying amounts over time. In addition, the change of the design of the production line in some areas is becoming increasingly important due to the constant changes in the market in terms of the types and volumes of products to manufacture. The performance and reliability of a production system have a significant impact on the operational costs of the system and therefore, on the profits and the competitiveness of the enterprise. According to this context / dilemma, the manufacturers need practical and efficient tools to effectively design their flexible manufacturing systems in order to become able to respond quickly to their customers’ needs. Indeed, a flexible manufacturing system is a combination of a job shop and manufacturing cells. Each cell contains all the resources required to treat the parts that have similar production characteristics. These resources consist of machines, labor, tools, equipment, etc. The cells may be designed in many ways. In order to reduce the cost and the duration of the fabrication and to avoid the conflicts, it is very important to optimally route the manufacturing parts and to optimize thereafter the formation of the cells. Hence, this study aims to improve the design of flexible manufacturing systems while taking into account the economic aspect through the development of three new algorithms. The first work aims to optimize the formation of the manufacturing and fractional cells, while introducing a new theoretical toolkit. This kit greatly accelerates the discovery of the final solution from a large number of candidate solutions. The second one focuses on the optimization of the part routing through a heuristic model that minimizes the costs and the durations of the production. The last algorithm presents a new method that maximizes the profits of the manufacturing enterprises through the investment on new machines or through the upgrade of the existing ones in the context of the flexible fabrication. The industrial importance of this work comes from the fact that an enterprise can use all of the three algorithms in an interdependent manner in order to optimize its system.

Date	4 Aug 2016
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Thien-My Dao (Supervisor)