Minimization of Expected Cycle Time in Manufacturing Cells with Uncontrollable Behavior

Finding optimal working sequences for flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) is a challenging task, especially if uncontrollable events, such as machine breakdowns, can occur in these systems. In this paper, we continue our previous work within the area of FMS scheduling by extending our methods to uncontrollable systems. For this sake, the ideas of probabilistic finite automata are combined with the modeling formalism of extended finite automata. Next, an A*-based scheduling algorithm, minimizing the expectation value of the FMS cycle time is designed.