Fuzzy scheduling problem in self-organizing manufacturing system

Deals with fuzzy scheduling problems including a path planning problem. We have proposed self-organizing manufacturing systems which are composed of autonomous modules. Each module decides output through the interaction with other modules, but the module does not share complete information concerning other modules. The manufacturing procedure can be divided into the sequence of three modules: tool locating module, scheduling module, and path planning module. We first solve the scheduling problem where the processing time is fuzzy. We solve the fuzzy scheduling problem by a genetic algorithm. After preplanning, the path planning module transports materials and products. Based on the processing time, the schedule module updates fuzzy processing time. We discuss the effectiveness of the proposed method through the computer simulation results