NSGA Based Algorithm for Energy Efficient Scheduling in Cellular Manufacturing

Abstract Energy efficient scheduling is assuming significance due to focus on sustainable manufacturing practices as well as environmental impact. Many researchers have proposed algorithms/methodologies for scheduling in manufacturing environment including cellular manufacturing. However, very few studies have been reported in the area of cellular manufacturing with a focus on minimizing makespan, flowtime and energy consumption. In this study, we propose NSGA based algorithm for minimizing makespan, flowtime as well as energy consumption by the manufacturing resources in the context of cellular manufacturing system. Based on our earlier study, it is noted that the operational performance of cellular manufacturing systems depends on the percentage of missing operations and scheduling approach (such as dispatching rules) used. Our preliminary studies show that there is a significant potential for improving the schedule of operations by considering energy consumption. From the limited experimental results, it is noted that the flow time, makespan and idle time was decreased in few cases with the combined objective. We propose to conduct a detailed study on the test problems in flowshop configuration and cellular manufacturing context with the objective of minimization of flow time, makespan, idle time and energy consumption.