Integrated process design for varying products & changeable manufacturing

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Changeable and flexible manufacturing and assembly systems are presently considered a key new technology for meeting the current challenges of increased global competition and the dynamic unpredictable markets. This research program aims at the development of important logical enablers, namely process planning and scheduling, for these advanced changeable manufacturing environments and varying product designs and extending the knowledge of manufacturing systems by introduction of novel planning methods and mathematical models. It targets three primary areas and research issues that lie at the product/system interface domain: 1) Development of a hybrid process planning and design methodology that would combine the merits of both retrieval- and generative-based planning as well as the popular Group Technology methods and platform formation at the product level. 2) Development of conceptually novel methods for planning, which are proving to be of far better computational complexity and at the same time more suitable to today's changeable manufacturing environments. Both novel mathematical programming methods and non-traditional optimization are considered. 3) Developing novel methods for preemptive production scheduling of dynamic flexible job shops. 4) Interfacing and integrating both upstream design activities as well as downstream production scheduling and system reconfiguration with process design and scheduling. Development and integration within state-of-the-art Product Lifecycle Management solutions are targeted, and eventually it turning into an available Canadian commercial off-the-shelf product. Finally, integration with production planning and scheduling is also being investigated. This research will contribute to the training of both graduate and undergraduate students. It is expected to make significant contributions to the science and knowledge of manufacturing systems, and hence the ability of Canadian companies to compete globally. Results and application are expected to cover both the aerospace and automotive industries.