Resource allocation and performance evaluation of the reconfigurable manufacturing systems

The reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) is a new concept, and it can increase the product variety and production quantity as well. The key factor of introducing the RMS depends on the redesigned equipment layout and material flows. In order to construct a high performance production system, the allocation of resources must be analyzed first. The paper proposes an equipment layout assignment algorithm (ELAA) to find the near optimal equipment layouts for reducing the cycle time of core products. Consequently, the paper uses the distributed colored timed Petri net (DCTPN) to model the RMS, and the new configuration can be designed based on the resource allocation results. In addition, the performance of the reconfigured manufacturing system is also evaluated based on the DCTPN simulation results. Finally, a simplified 200 mm fab is discussed to demonstrate the procedures of constructing reconfigurable fab models, allocating resources and evaluating the performance.