Optimizing Concurrent Scheduling of Machines and Tools in a Flexible Manufacturing System with Alternating Machines Using the Flower Pollination Algorithm

This paper examines the concurrent scheduling of machines and tools with machines in a multi-machine flexible manufacturing system (FMS) with the aim of minimizing the makespan in automobile manufacturing industry. Due to the high cost of tools in FMS, each type of tool has only one duplicate in circulation. To reduce the cost of duplicating tools on each machine, a central tool magazine (CTM) is used to store and share tools among several machines. The main challenge in this scenario is to allocate machines from alternate machines and tools to job operations in a way that minimizes the make span. To address this problem, the article proposes a mixed nonlinear integer programming formulation and a Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA). The results show that the FPA outperforms existing algorithms and using alternate machines for operations can reduce the make span. Therefore, this paper suggests that the FPA-based approach can be effectively utilized in real-world FMS applications, particularly in the automobile manufacturing industry, to achieve efficient scheduling and production planning.