Integrating Process Planning and Scheduling with an Intelligent Facilitator

This paper introduces a dynamic facilitating mechan is m for the integration of process planning and scheduling in a batch-manufacturi ng environment. This integration is essential for the optimum use of production resources and generation of realistic process plans that can be readily executed with little or no modification. In this paper, integration is modeled in two le vels, viz., process planning and scheduling, which are linked by an intelligent facilitator. The process planning module employs an o...