Scheduling in flexible job shops under machine breakdowns with initial setup times - A practical application

Machine's breakdown is one of the prominent disturbances in the shop floor. A shop floor problem of Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) student training workshop is solved by using the robust rescheduling strategy. A combination of Genetic Algorithm (GA) with the scheduling rules like SPT and LPT is used to minimize the performance measure i.e.; Makespan to obtain a feasible schedule as well as reschedule with initial set up times of machines. This provides before hand information of processes assignment to different machines in each work center. This algorithm is already used, tested and analyzed for the benchmark problem like MT10 for different instances in Flexible Job Shop environment for rescheduling in case of machine's breakdown. Results of simulation studies for scheduling and rescheduling are given for BIT training workshop by using developed software.