Cyclic Scheduling

Flexible manufacturing systems that are capable of producing various products while using the same adjustable machines and material movement systems have assumed a certain prominence because a need exists for expensive manufacturing plants to do this. Continuous manufacturing often requires cyclic processes or tasks that are repeated indefinitely for as long as a production system is working. The production system and the cyclic processes have to be properly scheduled because it is desirable to maximise throughput and to try to minimize costs. Thus, cyclic scheduling in flexible manufacturing systems is something that has to be well understood by all those involved with production management and researchers have tried to develop a variety of heuristics and algorithms for solving cyclic scheduling problems in flexible manufacturing systems. This research paper presents a brief discussion about cyclic scheduling in flexible manufacturing.