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US 8,769,542 B2Granted
System for adaptive lot sizing in cellular manufacturing for balancing workloads across multiple cells using split-then-merge operations and earliest completion route algorithm
AssigneesPalo Alto Research Center Incorporated, Xerox Corporation
InventorsRong Zhou, Sudhendu Rai, Minh Binh Do
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present application presents a new and improved system and method of enhanced Lean Document Production (LDP), which employs cellular manufacturing concepts. The LDP process incorporates an auto-splitting algorithm and/or an earliest completion route algorithm to generate an operation schedule.
Claims10
A method of balancing workload across multiple cells in a cellular manufacturing environment, the method comprising:
- compiling a listing of a plurality of jobs and a plurality of cells, wherein the plurality of jobs are to be produced by at least some of the plurality of cells, and each of the cells include at least one production device;
- and
- auto-splitting the jobs,
- wherein the auto-splitting includes:
- dividing the jobs into smaller sized lots;
- scheduling the smaller sized lots to various ones of the cells one lot at a time, wherein the scheduling includes assigning the smaller sized lots of the jobs to the cells using an earliest-completion-route algorithm, which includes enumerating a set of feasible routes for each specific job of the plurality of jobs that has a minimum number of inter-cell hops, finding the best schedule by only using those cells identified by the corresponding route and selecting the route and corresponding schedule that finishes the specific job taking into account at least one of production throughput and wait times;
- determining, once all the smaller sized lots are scheduled, which of the smaller sized lots can be combined with other ones of the scheduled smaller sized lots to form larger lots;
- and
- merging together the smaller sized lots determined to be combinable as consecutive lots of the same job,
- wherein this method is performed by use of at least an electronic processor.
7 more elements
A method of balancing workload across multiple cells in a manufacturing environment, the method comprising:
- compiling a listing of a plurality of jobs and cells, wherein the plurality of jobs are to be produced by at least some of the plurality of cells, and each of the cells include at least one production device;
- performing auto-splitting operations to divide the jobs into smaller sized lots, wherein the auto-splitting operations use split-then-merge operations to adapt the lots to cell workloads while returning lot sizes that are optimized for the cell to which the lots are to be assigned;
- enumerating a set of feasible routes for a specific job of the plurality of jobs in the manufacturing environment using an iterative broadening strategy to gradually relax route enumeration criterion, starting with trying out routes for the specific job having fewer inter-cell hops first;
- assigning the specific job to the cells using an earliest-completion-route algorithm, wherein the specific job is assigned to the cells that provide an earliest completion time for the specific job;
- and
- generating a job schedule for job production of the specific job based on the results of the auto-splitting operations and the earliest-completion-route algorithm which are performed in parallel,
- wherein the method is performed by use of at least an electronic processor.
4 more elements
A method of balancing workload across multiple cells in a cellular manufacturing environment, the method comprising:
- compiling a listing of a plurality of jobs and cells wherein the plurality of jobs are to be produced by at least some of the plurality of cells, and each of the cells include at least one production device;
- performing auto-splitting operations to divide the jobs into smaller sized lots, wherein the auto-splitting operations use split-then-merge operation to adapt the lots to cell workloads while returning lot sizes that are optimized for the cell to which the lots are to be assigned;
- assigning the jobs to the cells using an earliest-completion-route scheduling strategy, wherein the earliest-completion-route scheduling strategy includes:
- enumerating a set of feasible routes for a specific job of the plurality of jobs that all have a minimum number of inter-cell hops;
- for each route in this set, finding the best schedule by only using those cells identified by the corresponding route;
- and
- selecting the route and the corresponding schedule that finishes the specific job earliest;
- and
- generating a job schedule for job production based on the results of the auto-splitting operations and the earliest-completion-route scheduling strategy which are performed in parallel, wherein the method is performed by use of at least an electronic processor.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.