In the practical application of push-pull based production planning and scheduling architecture, the manufacturing system was found lacking of collaborative mechanism, especially for a networked-manufacturing environment, which requires each individual manufacturer interact and cooperate with each other for a collaborative manufacturing. This paper presents a production planning and scheduling architecture for networked-manufacturing system based on available-to-promise, which can effectively merge forecast-driven production activity with order-driven production activity, thus ensures the steady and prompt supply of material, and also cooperation and mutual benefit of individual manufacturer. This architecture consists of 1) an ATP-based order management and decision-making system, 2) a push-pull based multi-plant master production schedule collaboration model, 3) a pre-reactive collaborative replenishment model, 4) a production scheduling model of unrelated parallel machine and 5) the corresponding production planning and scheduling methods for each model. By combining the concept of ATP, this architecture can not only provide resource planning for networked-manufacturing system, but also offer quick response and promise to customer requests.
Agent-based hierarchical production planning and scheduling in make-to-order manufacturing system