In: Mechanical Engineering
An FMS consists of three stations plus a load/unload station. Station 1 loads and unloads parts using two servers (material handling workers). Station 2 performs horizontal milling operations with two servers (identical CNC horizontal milling machines). Station 3 performs vertical milling operations with three servers (identical CNC vertical milling machines). Station 4 performs drilling operations with two servers (identical drill presses). The machines are connected by a part handling system that has two work carriers and a mean transport time = 3.5 min. The FMS produces four parts, A, B, C, and D, whose part mix fractions and process routings are presented in the table below. The operation frequency is fijk = 1.0 for all operations. Determine (a) maximum production rate of the FMS, (b) utilization of each machine in this system, and (c) average utilisation of the system U s .