Papers by Author: Abdulrahman M. Al-Ahmari

Abstract: This paper considers the problem of designing cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) with the presence of alternate process plans, tools and workers. The objective is to minimize the total costs of machine installation, operations, tools and workers with a number of identified practical constraints. A genetic algorithm is designed in order to efficiently solve medium and large sized problems. Preliminary numerical results show the worth of implementing the suggested procedure.

Abstract: Deadlocks are a rather undesirable situation in a highly automated flexible manufacturing system. Their occurrences often deteriorate the utilization of resources and may lead to catastrophic results in safety-critical systems. This work surveys the open problems in deadlock control for automated manufacturing systems. The focus is deadlock prevention due to its large and continuing stream of efforts. A control strategy is evaluated in terms of computational complexity, behavioral permissiveness, and structural complexity of its deadlock-free supervisor. This study provides readers with a conglomeration of the open problems in this area and facilitates them in finding a suitable topic for their research.