Matrix-structured manufacturing systems: integrated planning of design and material supply

Manufacturing companies aim to balance the flexibility and efficiency of manufacturing systems. The trend of improving the flexibility of product and material movements within manufacturing systems has recently gained more attention as an alternative to traditional flow-line manufacturing due to the growing opportunities for coordinating complex processes via digitalisation. One such concept is matrix-structured manufacturing systems (MMS), in which products and materials flow through stations arranged in a matrix-shaped grid. As multiple routes through the system may exist even for identical products, planning material supply to stations becomes drastically more complex. The scientific literature frequently addresses the design of MMS or related flexible types of manufacturing systems. However, material supply planning and its interdependencies with system design have not been previously addressed for MMS. This paper jointly assesses the interrelated problems of design planning and material supply planning for MMS. To this end, a mixed-integer programming model is proposed considering both interdepedent problems simultaneously. Numerical results illustrate that simultaneous planning is superior to sequential planning and leads to structurally different results. A genetic algorithm is developed and assessed for simultaneously solving design planning and material supply planning in large instances.