유전 알고리즘을 이용한 Work-In-Process 수준 최적화

Abstract

This research focused on deciding optimal manufacturing WIP (Work-In-Process) limit for a small production system. Reducing WIP leads to stable capacity, better manufacturing flow and decrease inventory. WIP is the one of the important issue, since it can affect manufacturing area, like productivity and line efficiency and bottlenecks in manufacturing process. Several approaches implemented in this research. First, two strategies applied to decide WIP limit. One is roulette wheel selection and the other one is elite strategy. Second, for each strategy, JIT (Just In Time), CONWIP (Constant WIP), Gated Max WIP System and CWIPL (Critical WIP Loops) system applied to find a best material flow mechanism. Therefore, pull control system is preferred to control production line efficiently. In the production line, the WIP limit has been decided based on mathematical models or expert’s decision. However, due to the complexity of the process or increase of the variables, it is difficult to obtain optimal WIP limit. To obtain an optimal WIP limit, GA applied in each material control system. When evaluating the performance of the result, fitness function is used by reflecting WIP parameter. Elite strategy showed better performance than roulette wheel selection when evaluating fitness value. Elite strategy reach to the optimal WIP limit faster than roulette wheel selection and generation time is short. For this reason, this study proposes a fast and reliable method for determining the WIP level by applying genetic algorithm to pull system based production process. This research showed that this method could be applied to a more complex production system.