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General Two-Level Storage Management Problem: A Reconsideration of the KTNS-Rule

Mika Hirvikorpi, Kari Salonen, Timo Knuutila, Olli Nevalainen, General Two-Level Storage Management Problem: A Reconsideration of the KTNS-Rule. European Journal of Operational Research 171(1), 189–207, 2006.

Abstract:

A two-level storage management problem arising in flexible
manufacturing systems is studied. We consider the case of several
different types of PCBs (printed circuit board) to be processed with a
component assembly machine. The PCB processing order is fixed and all
components to be assembled to a PCB should be in the feeder of the
machine before starting the processing of the PCB in question. Our task
is to perform the component switches between the primary storage
(feeder) and the secondary storage (component reel shelves) so that the
overall switching cost of the component reels is minimal. The component
reel switches are necessary because of the limited capacity of the
machine feeder.

The “Keep Tool Needed Soonest” policy is known to be optimal when
component reel widths are equal. A more general problem in which
different component reels have different widths is considered here. In
contrast to previous studies by Matzliach and Tzur [The online tool
switching problem with non-uniform tool size, International Journal of
Production Research 36 (12) (1998) 3407–3420] we assume that
reorganizations of the feeder are necessary in order to place a wider
component reel into the feeder where the free space is fragmented into
smaller pieces. In PCB assembly the reorganization costs are
substantial. The objective is then to minimize the sum of the costs for
component switches between the two storage levels and the
reorganizations of the feeder.

BibTeX entry:

@ARTICLE{jHiSaKnNe06a,
  title = {General Two-Level Storage Management Problem: A Reconsideration of the KTNS-Rule},
  author = {Hirvikorpi, Mika and Salonen, Kari and Knuutila, Timo and Nevalainen, Olli},
  journal = {European Journal of Operational Research},
  volume = {171},
  number = {1},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  pages = {189–207},
  year = {2006},
  keywords = {Flexible manufacturing systems; PCB assembly industry; Tool change; Heuristics; Exact solution},
}

Belongs to TUCS Research Unit(s): Algorithmics and Computational Intelligence Group (ACI)

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