F. Frank Chen

Bio: F. Frank Chen is an academic researcher from University of Texas at San Antonio. The author has contributed to research in topics: Scheduling (production processes) & Decision support system. The author has an hindex of 28, co-authored 83 publications receiving 2740 citations. Previous affiliations of F. Frank Chen include Virginia Tech & Florida International University.

Development and applications of holonic manufacturing systems: A survey

Abstract: This paper surveys the literature in the holonic manufacturing systems area in an attempt to bring together the key issues in the development and applications of holonic systems. A brief introduction presents the characteristics of today’s manufacturing environment and the requirements for next generation manufacturing systems. Then, starting with considerations about the origins of the holonic concept and its first applications in manufacturing, the paper presents the advances made in applying the holonic concept to manufacturing systems area. Several considerations for the development of holonic manufacturing systems and specific holonic system requirements are discussed. As holonic concept is considered a solution for next generation manufacturing systems, there is a significant number of applications and implementations of the holonic concept in manufacturing systems domain. The most important and relevant approaches developed so far are presented. Finally, a short conclusion and future research directions in the area are provided

Unrelated parallel machine scheduling with setup times using simulated annealing

Abstract: This paper presents a scheduling problem for unrelated parallel machines with sequence-dependent setup times, using simulated annealing (SA). The problem accounts for allotting work parts of L jobs into M parallel unrelated machines, where a job refers to a lot composed of N items. Some jobs may have different items while every item within each job has an identical processing time with a common due date. Each machine has its own processing times according to the characteristics of the machine as well as job types. Setup times are machine independent but job sequence dependent. SA, a meta-heuristic, is employed in this study to determine a scheduling policy so as to minimize total tardiness. The suggested SA method utilizes six job or item rearranging techniques to generate neighborhood solutions. The experimental analysis shows that the proposed SA method significantly outperforms a neighborhood search method in terms of total tardiness.

A leanness measure of manufacturing systems for quantifying impacts of lean initiatives

Abstract: Various lean tools and techniques have been developed for process improvement. In order to track the progress, lean metrics were developed correspondingly. However, an integrated and quantitative measure of overall leanness level has not been established. This paper proposes a unit-invariant leanness measure with a self-contained benchmark to quantify the leanness level of manufacturing systems. Evolved from the concept of data envelopment analysis (DEA), the leanness measure extracts the value-adding investments from a production process to determine the leanness frontier as a benchmark. A linear program based on slacks-based measure (SBM) derives the leanness score that indicates how lean the system is and how much waste exists. Using the score, impacts of various lean initiatives can be quantified as decision support information complementing the existing lean metrics.

Measuring the impact of Lean tools on the cost-time investment of a product using cost-time profiles

Abstract: Traditional costing systems consider the accumulation of costs, but not their timing. Value stream mapping presents a good picture of the time consumed and operations performed for the production of a product within a manufacturing facility, but it does not track the accumulation of costs. The cost-time profile (CTP) is a tool that follows the accumulation of cost in the manufacturing of a product through time; and it finds the cost-time investment (CTI), which is an indicator of the use of resources in the manufacturing of a product through quantities and timing. In this paper, the expected impact of Lean implementations on the CTP and CTI is discussed. The CTP is proposed as a useful tool for the evaluation of the improvements achieved by the implementation of Lean tools and techniques.

Unrelated parallel machine scheduling with setup times and a total weighted tardiness objective

Abstract: This paper presents several search heuristics and their performance in batch scheduling of parallel, unrelated machines. Identical or similar jobs are typically processed in batches in order to decrease setup times and/or processing times. The problem accounts for allotting batched work parts into unrelated parallel machines, where each batch consists of a fixed number of jobs. Some batches may contain different jobs but all jobs within each batch should have an identical processing time and a common due date. Processing time of each job of a batch is determined according to the machine group as well as the batch group to which the job belongs. Major or minor setup times are required between two subsequent batches depending on batch sequence but are independent of machines. The objective of our study is to minimize the total weighted tardiness for the unrelated parallel machine scheduling. Four search heuristics are proposed to address the problem, namely (1) the earliest weighted due date, (2) the shortest weighted processing time, (3) the two-level batch scheduling heuristic, and (4) the simulated annealing method. These proposed local search heuristics are tested through computational experiments with data from dicing operations of a compound semiconductor manufacturing facility.

Toyota production system : beyond large-scale production

Abstract: * Starting from Need* Evolution of the Toyota Production System* Further Development* Genealogy of the Toyota Production System* The True Intention of the Ford System* Surviving the Low-Growth Period

A survey of dynamic scheduling in manufacturing systems

Abstract: In most real-world environments, scheduling is an ongoing reactive process where the presence of a variety of unexpected disruptions is usually inevitable, and continually forces reconsideration and revision of pre-established schedules. Many of the approaches developed to solve the problem of static scheduling are often impractical in real-world environments, and the near-optimal schedules with respect to the estimated data may become obsolete when they are released to the shop floor. This paper outlines the limitations of the static approaches to scheduling in the presence of real-time information and presents a number of issues that have come up in recent years on dynamic scheduling. The paper defines the problem of dynamic scheduling and provides a review of the state-of-the-art of currently developing research on dynamic scheduling. The principles of several dynamic scheduling techniques, namely, heuristics, meta-heuristics, multi-agent systems, and other artificial intelligence techniques are described in detail, followed by a discussion and comparison of their potential.