A priority based optimization algorithm for multi-objective integrated process planning and scheduling problem

Process planning and scheduling are two fundamental elements of a modern manufacturing system. Their effective integration is very important for increasing productivity and overall efficiency of a manufacturing system. Given that a single objective cannot effectively describe real world problems and numerous key parameters must be considered by decision makers to determine the performance of a manufacturing system, multi-objective optimization is important for integrated process planning and scheduling (IPPS) problem. In this paper a priority based optimization algorithm is presented for multi-objective optimization of IPPS problem. The algorithm uses a priority based mechanism, inspired by use of dispatching rules, to effectively guide the search towards Pareto optimal points for a multi-objective IPPS problem. An external archive is used to store the non-dominated solutions. The proposed algorithm has been tested for three different instances presented in recent literature. Experimental results suggest that the proposed algorithm is quiet capable of producing improved solutions.