Process Planning and Scheduling for Flexible Machining Cells (Effective Use for Unmanned Production)

A flexible machining cell considered in this paper consists of a single-stage NC machine with multiple functions, such as a machining center. A new approach of implementing process planning and scheduling for the flexible machining cell is proposed in order to attempt unmanned production. Several problems, such as maximizing the number of workpieces to be machined and minimizing the total elapsed time, are formulated under the limited capacity of the tool magazine, the available processing time, the restricted machining conditions, etc. In an attempt to solve these problems, a computational algorithm is developed to determine both the optimum sequence of operations and the optimum machining conditions for all workpieces to be machined. A numerical example is given to show the practical applicability of this algorithm.