Scheduling for assembly islands with fixed-position layouts

This paper focuses on the scheduling problem in assembly islands environment with fixed layouts. A fixed-position assembly line is always used when products (e.g., ships and planes) are too fragile, large or heavy to move. In such a configuration, products normally remain in one location for its entire manufacturing period while machines, materials and workers are moved to an assembly site called assembly island. Such layouts can afford necessary flexibility and competitive operational efficiency for products of modest variety and production volumes. However, the high dynamics of material, equipment and manpower flows in assembly islands make the production scheduling quite difficult. The authors present the research framework for scheduling in assembly islands with fixed-position layouts, give the mathematical model, and propose a real-time scheduling system.