A new flexibility index for machines selection in Reconfigurable Manufacturing System design problem: Multi-objective approach

International audienceReconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) is a recent manufacturing paradigm driven by responsiveness and high performance, where machine components, machines or material handling units can be added, removed, modified or interchanged as needed. Thus, the design of such systems is based on reconfigurable machines capabilities and product specification. This paper deals with the reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) design problem. Here we propose a RMS design approach based on an adapted non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) for selecting the best set of machines to ensure the best process plan according to the customized flexibility required for producing all parts of a given product. This approach will allow us to get the more adequate machines from a set of available (candidate) ones. The machines selection is based on two main objectives, namely the minimization of the total completion time and the maximization of the flexibility index. In order to demonstrate the application of our approach, we present a numerical example and discuss the obtained result