Author

Sherif Masoud

Abstract

Agile manufacturing is concerned with thriving in prevailing market conditions by quickly introducing new or modified products. This research deals with the scheduling of an agile manufacturing system (AMS), which performs both machining and assembly, with the objective of minimizing the makespan. The AMS allows the production of high varieties of modular products in small batches and at low costs. This problem is difficult to solve optimally and was solved in literature by heuristic algorithms. In the current research, four novel, genetic algorithms and simulated annealing-based, heuristics – General Genetic Algorithm, General Simulated Annealing, Heuristic Assisted Genetic Algorithm, and Heuristic Assisted Simulated Annealing – are developed to address this scheduling problem. A 23 factorial experiment, replicated twice, is conducted to compare the performance of the proposed and existing heuristics and identify the significant factors that affect the resulting percentage deviation from the lower bound and the frequency of resulting in the best solution. The results show the superiority of the developed heuristics to those existing in literature in addition to identifying the significant factors and interactions.

Department

Mechanical Engineering Department

Degree Name

MS in Mechanical Engineering

Date of Award

6-1-2004

Online Submission Date

February 2013

First Advisor

Gaafar, Lotfi

Committee Member 1

Gaafar, Lotfi

Document Type

Thesis

Extent

143 p.

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy. The author has granted the American University in Cairo or its agents a non-exclusive license to archive this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study, and to make it accessible, in whole or in part, in all forms of media, now or hereafter known.

IRB

Not necessary for this item

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