A new process quality-based multi-objective multi-part approach for the integrated process planning and scheduling (IPPS) problem in reconfigurable manufacturing environment

This paper addresses the so-called integrated process planning and scheduling (IPPS) problem in a reconfigurable manufacturing environment. Process planning and scheduling are two important and complex functions in manufacturing. To reduce the problem complexity, they are considered sequentially by traditional approaches. In this paper, we consider the simultaneous integration of both functions by developing a heuristic approach to solve the IPPS problem in a reconfigurable environment. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) comprise of a set of machines distinguished by multiple working configurations and tools. Each machine can perform a certain number of operations based on its configurations and their availability. The purpose of the proposed heuristic approach is to find the best assignment of operations to machines while considering process-quality. Finally, to demonstrate the approach applicability, an illustrative numerical example is presented and the results discussed.