An Industrial Application of Resource Constrained Scheduling for Quick Changeover

Abstract

This paper describes the improvement of the quick changeover process of a painting line in a wooden frames factory. The well-known SMED technique (Single Minute Exchange of Die) was applied. However the characteristics of the setup operations (those characteristics also occur in other industrial changeover scenarios) have revealed the possibility of advantageous utilization of resource constrained project scheduling methods. The application of one of these methods represents an innovative contribution to the quick changeover area, allowing (when applicable) the scheduling of the involved setup operations, considering their duration, precedence relations and resources' need, in order to achieve a reduced setup time.