Distributed Production Scheduling for Multi-Product Flexible Production Lines

摘要

Production scheduling is the pivot to enable a flexible production operation to meet market demands. In this paper, we consider the production scheduling problem in a multi-product flexible production line with limited end-of-line inventory capacity. The market demands arrive in a real-time and stochastic manner. The Cost of Tardiness is incurred if the market demand is not met, and the Cost of Surfeit is incurred if the finished products exceed the inventory capacity. We propose a data-driven modeling method to describe the dynamics of the flexible production lines considering tool setup time. Based on the mathematical model, a distributed production scheduling scheme is proposed. We let the information regarding the market demands and inventory levels flow backward along the production line. Each machine schedules its own production based on current and predicted customer demands, and then informs its upstream machine.