Optimisation of work flow

Abstract

AeroSpace Technologies of Australia (ASTA) is a supplier of aircraft components for several of the world's major aircraft manufacturers. Its anticipation of a substantial increase in demand has led to concern as to its ability to satisfy customer imposed schedules. ASTA's main concern is scheduling at its five autoclaves. The autoclaves, which are large pressurised ovens in which components are cured before non destructive testing and final assembly, appear to be the bottlenecks in ASTA's manufacturing process.

ASTA came to the Australian Mathematics-in-Industry Study Group (MISG) with the objective of developing an optimised loading plan for the autoclaves to improve their utilisation while meeting demand for final components. This report discusses the results of an intensive three day study by the MISG group working on the ASTA problem. Its findings were that:
• Modifying the way in which Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) is used may usefully increase autoclave utilisation.
• A single product which will account for 60% of factory hours could and should be scheduled separately.
• It is feasible and very helpful to group products into a small number of sets with common autoclave processing requirements.
• Integer programming models modelling the production line show considerable promise and should be developed further.