Patent ID: 8464268

Claim:
In a manufacturing shop having a plurality of production devices arranged in a cellular manufacturing environment, including a plurality of cells, with each of the plurality of cells containing at least one of the plurality of production devices, a method of balancing workload across the plurality of cells in the cellular manufacturing environment, the method comprising: compiling a listing of a plurality of jobs and the plurality of cells wherein the plurality of jobs are to be produced by at least some of the plurality of cells, and each of the cells include at least one production device; dividing jobs determined to be above a certain size into batches; assigning the jobs not divided into batches to the cells using an earliest-completion-time algorithm, wherein a specific job is assigned to a job specific cell that provides an earliest completion time for the specific job; assigning the batches of the jobs determined to be above the certain size to the cells using the earliest-completion-time algorithm, wherein a specific batch is assigned to a batch specific cell that provides the earliest completion time for the specific batch; and generating a job schedule for job production based on the results of the earliest-completion-time algorithm, wherein the generating of the job schedule includes using information from a shop level scheduler and a cell level scheduler, wherein the shop level scheduler and the cell level scheduler are in communication with each other to provide information regarding an amount of work to be accomplished at the shop level (shop-level work in progress) and an amount of work to be accomplished at the cell level (cell-level work in progress), and further including trading off between the shop-level work-in-progress and the cell-level work-in-progress to optimize the job schedule, wherein the method is performed using at least one computer operable processor.