• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.130-145
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• 2004

This paper addresses the integrated problem of process planning and scheduling in FMS (Flexible Manufacturing System). The integration of process planning and scheduling is important for an efficient utilization of manufacturing resources. In this paper, a new method using an artificial intelligent search technique, called asymmetric multileveled symbiotic evolutionary algorithm, is presented to handle the two functions at the same time. Efficient genetic representations and operator schemes are considered. While designing the schemes, we take into account the features specific to each of process planning and scheduling problems. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with those of a traditional hierarchical approach and existing evolutionary algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the compared algorithms.