Distributed job-shop rescheduling problem considering reconfigurability of machines: a self-adaptive hybrid equilibrium optimiser

The recent trend of globalisation of the economy has been accelerated thanks to emerging new communication technologies. This forces some companies to be adapted to rapidly changing market requirements utilising a multi-factory production network. Job scheduling in such a distributed manufacturing system, is significantly complicated especially in the presence of dynamic events. Furthermore, production systems need to be flexible to timely react to the imposed changes. Hence, reconfigurable machine tools (RMTs) can be used as a resource for flexibility in manufacturing systems. This paper deals with a distributed job-shop rescheduling problem, in which the facilities benefit from reconfigurable machines. Firstly, the problem is mathematically formulated to minimise total weighted lateness in a static state. Then, the dynamic version is extent based on a designed conceptual framework of rescheduling module to update the current schedule. Since the problem is NP-hard, a self-adaptive hybrid equilibrium optimiser algorithm is proposed. The experiments show that the proposed EO algorithm is extremely efficient. Finally, a simulation-optimisation model is developed to evaluate the performance of the manufacturing system facing stochastic arriving jobs. The obtained results show that the production system can be very flexible relying on its distributed facilities and reconfigurable machines.