| This research highlights the importance of flexibility in the modern manufacturing environment. An information management system is a key to achieving the required manufacturing flexibility. A shorter production cycle, reduced lead time, and lower production inventory are some of the key factors required to succeed in today's global competition environment. To achieve these goals, a repetitive manufacturing concept with overlapping production considerations have been recognized to be a good approach to satisfy some of the goals. In addition to repetitive manufacturing, an interactive scheduling system will be a beneficial tool.;In this research, Repetitive Flexible Flow Lines (RFFL) was defined as a multi-stage, multi-line, and multi-product system. The requirements of an RFFL scheduling system, including static scheduling and dynamic scheduling, were studied in this research. A RFFL shop floor scheduling methodology was proposed to solve five decomposed sub-problems: (1) Daily product mix and lot sizing, (2) Optimal transfer batch determination, (3) Global sequencing with sequence dependency of setup, (4) Local stage dispatching, and (5) Dynamic events response. The application software was developed using the Microsoft Access Relational Database Management System under the Microsoft Windows operating system on a DELL 486/33 personal computer platform. A case study of RFFL in a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) assembly manufacturing environment was also presented. In addition to meeting the reduced lead time requirement, reduced flow time, and reduced WIP, it was determined that minimal total operation cost was shown to be achieved. In summary, this research was devoted to studying the operating characteristics of the RFFL manufacturing system, the scheduling methodology for this system, and a useful interactive scheduling system. The proposed scheduling methodology and the computer interactive application software have been shown to be beneficial in realizing the research goals. |
