Abstract: In a textile factory, there are looms. Workers can configure the looms to weave different pieces of textiles. A loom can only weave a piece of textiles if the piece of textiles is compatible with its loom configuration. To change its configuration, a loom requires a setup. The setups are performed manually by workers. There are also sequence-dependent setups to prepare a loom for the upcoming piece of textiles. We wish to minimize the setups duration and the lateness. A solution must satisfy some constraints. The problem is subject to cumulative resources. The quantity of workers simultaneously configuring machines can’t exceed the total number of employees. A loom can only weave a piece of textiles at a time. Scheduling tasks on a single loom is an NP-Hard problem. In this project, we must schedule tasks an average of 800 tasks on 90 looms with a two-week horizon. Stochastic events might occur and must be accounted for. We must design an algorithm to create robust schedules under uncertainty. As a thread breaking during the weaving process isn’t a rare occurrence, a better schedule could greatly impact the performances of a company when applying the schedule to a real situation. We formulate that the number of breaks per task follows a Poisson distribution. First, we propose a branching heuristic based on the traveling salesperson problem in order to leverage computation times. The solutions found are 5 to 30% better according to their objective function than the ones of a greedy heuristic similar to what our industrial partner uses. We also present a filtering algorithm to guarantee robustness of solutions in respect to a confidence level. This algorithm improves robustness and creates more realist schedules. The algorithm is also efficient in computation time by achieving bound consistency in linear time. Combining both these techniques leads to the integration of our research in the decision system of our industrial partner.
Authors
Alexandre Mercier-Aubin
Bibtex
@mastersthesis{AlexMSC,
author={Mercier-Aubin, Alexandre},
title={Ordonnancement de tâches sous contraintes sur des métiers à tisser},
year={2020},
opturl={https://corpus.ulaval.ca/entities/publication/40913bfd-d10f-4e66-bad7-12e4f08510b4},
school={Universit\'e Laval}
}