A heuristic for solving manufacturing process and equipment selection problems

In a dynamic manufacturing environment, machines and machining process selection based on current part mix may need to be revised if part mix has changed or new machine tools have become available and economical. However, the costs of acquiring new machines and revising manufacturing process may exceed the benefits derived from such expansion or revision. The problem of selecting the best machining process and equipment in a dynamic manufacturing environment is studied in this paper. An integer programming model and a heuristic algorithm were developed to solve the problem of multiple time periods. Lagrangian relaxation was used to generate lower bounds of the integer programming model for testing the optimality of the heuristic solution. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the model and the solution technique.