Development of Scheduling System for Stamping Die Production Using Simulation Dispatch Approach

Scheduling has been a major challenging subject in operation management of manufacturing organization.In competitive market, customers need better, cheaper and faster product. For job shop system, such as the metal stamping die fabrication, products are custom-made or one-of-its-kind, and very low inventories are kept. Hence quantitative approach such as finite-capacity scheduling is expected to improve the capability of on-time delivery.Research in scheduling optimization is vast and many theories have been developed and their approaches were studied. For industrial application, there is a number of finite capacity scheduling software that could produce detailed assignment of jobs to machines.Implementing one of the finite-capacity scheduling software is an option.However, offthe-shelf software is not necessarily fully and instantly applicable in any organization.Although it can be overcome by requesting customized software developed by programming vendor, both of them involve substantial cost and the benefit may not be easily justified.For other option, this research aims to create a scheduling module developed with common computer package such as spreadsheet. The thesis includes review of scheduling concepts and basic techniques. Approaches in scheduling theories are also investigated.Features of commercial scheduling software are explored and compared briefly.There are basically three steps in the mechanisms of generating finite capacity schedules.They include checking machine available time, checking and selecting the item (individual job)based on priority, and assigning item to machine and update the machine status.A number of interfaces are used for inputting, holding, sorting, segregating, and transferring data, and generating schedules and reports. After necessary job inputs and decisions, the scheduling module is able to produce working calendar for planned machines and later generate their detailed schedules by referring the estimated operation duration of work piece, machine route and dispatch rules.The reports show performance of schedules generated under different dispatch rules. The program has been created based on a set of simplified conditions.For effective practical usage, accuracy of estimated operation durations,ease of data entry and definition of capacity and details of loading requirements can be improved

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