Integrated automatic optimal design of manufacturing systems

In this paper, an industrial-facilities selection problem has been considered. The selection of machine tools is the most important capital investment decision made by managers. In this research, an attempt has been made to use set theory for the facility-selection problem. From a known work load and the known capabilities of manufacturing resources, a set theoretic analysis leads to the identification of constraints bearing upon the process of resource selection in any given case. a suitable criterion of optimality then permits an optimal selection to be made by integer programming or other mathematical programming methods. The manufacturing system design for aircraft engine parts has been investigated. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.