Tool selection problem in flexible manufacturing systems

This paper deals with a problem on the selection of alternative tools in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) where a lot of tools are required to produce a large variety of product items. An approach using branch and bound method is proposed to minimize a total number of tools required through the optimal use of the alternative tools. In this approach, tools are initially divided into tool subgroups based on graph theory for the purpose of the effective search of the optimal solution. A small example is also presented to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed approach.