Optimization of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems Configuration Using Constraint Programming

To cope with market unpredictability and uncertainty, manufacturing industries should be able to rapidly adapt their manufacturing systems to be more responsive to market changes. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) offer an alternative to traditional manufacturing systems. They can rapidly reconfigure and readapt their capability and functionality to meet new requirements without the need to start from scratch. RMS are complex systems and a critical phase in their implementation involves their design. We propose a new constraint programming approach to minimize the total investment cost of a multi-part flow line configuration. The approach was implemented and tested on a literature case study. The results show the ability of the method to find an optimal solution in few seconds for a small instance.