Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Scheduling wafer slicing by multi-wire saw manufacturing in photovoltaic industry: a case study

  • Original Article
  • Published:
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Wafer slicing in photovoltaic industry is mainly done using multi-wire saw machines. The selection of set of bricks (parallelepiped block of crystalline silicon) to be sawn together poses difficult production scheduling decisions. The objective is to maximize the utilization of the available cutting length to improve the process throughput. We address the problem presenting a mathematical formulation and an algorithm that aims to solve it in very short running times while delivering superior solutions. The algorithm employs a reactive greedy randomized adaptive search procedure with some enhancements. Computational experiments proved its effectiveness and efficiency to solve real-world based problems and randomly generated instances. Implementation of an on-line decision system based on this algorithm can help photovoltaic industry to reduce slicing costs making a contribution for its competitiveness against other sources of energy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. EPIA European Photovoltaic Industry Association and Greenpeace (2005) Solar generation v. Technical report

  2. Swanson RM (2006) A vision for crystalline silicon photovoltaics. Prog Photovolt: Research and Applications 14(5):443–453

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Jester TL (2002) Crystalline silicon manufacturing progress. Prog Photovolt: Research and Applications 10(2):99–106

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Zulehner W (2000) Historical overview of silicon crystal pulling development. Mater Sci Eng B 73(1–3):7–15

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. del Cañizo C, del Coso G, Sinke WC (2009) Crystalline silicon solar module technology: towards the 1 euro per watt-peak goal. Prog Photovolt: Research and Applications 17(3):199–209

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Martello S, Toth P (1990) Knapsack problems: algorithms and computer implementations. Wiley, New York

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Eilon S, Christofides N (1971) The loading problem. Manage Sci 17(5):259–268

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Pisinger D (1999) An exact algorithm for large multiple knapsack problems. Eur J Oper Res 114(3):528–541

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Fukunaga A (2009) A branch-and-bound algorithm for hard multiple knapsack problems. Ann Oper Res. doi:10.1007/s10479-009-0660-y

    Google Scholar 

  10. Caprara A, Kellerer H, Pferschy U (2003) A 3/4-approximation algorithm for multiple subset sum. J Heuristics 9(2):99–111

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  11. Martello S, Toth P (1981) Heuristic algorithms for the multiple knapsack problem. Computing 27(2):93–112

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Khuri S, Bäck T, Heitkötter J (1994) The zero/one multiple knapsack problem and genetic algorithms. In: Proceedings of the 1994 ACM symposium on applied computing. ACM, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, pp 188–193

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Raidl GR (1999) A weight-coded genetic algorithm for the multiple container packing problem. In: Proceedings of the 1999 ACM symposium on applied computing. ACM, San Antonio, Texas, USA, pp 291–296

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Fukunaga AS (2008) A new grouping genetic algorithm for the multiple knapsack problem. In: IEEE congress on evolutionary computation, 2008. CEC 2008, IEEE world congress on computational intelligence, pp 2225–2232

  15. Kellerer H, Pferschy U, Pisinger D (2004) Knapsack problems. Springer, Berlin

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Feo TA, Resende MGC (1995) Greedy randomized adaptive search procedures. J Glob Optim 6(2):109–133

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Binato S, Hery WJ, Loewenstern DM, Resende MGC (2000) A grasp for job shop scheduling. In: Essays and surveys on metaheuristics. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 59–79

    Google Scholar 

  18. Prais M, Ribeiro CC (2000) Reactive grasp: an application to a matrix decomposition problem in tdma traffic assignment. INFORMS J Comput 12(3):164–176

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Adil GK, Ghosh JB (2005) Forming gt cells incrementally using grasp. Int J Adv Manuf Tech 26(11):1402–1408

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Prabhaharanl G, Shahul Hamid Khan B, Rakesh L (2006) Implementation of grasp in flow shop scheduling. Int J Adv Manuf Tech 30(11):1126–1131

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Resende M, Ribeiro C (2003) Greedy randomized adaptive search procedures. Kluwer, Dordrecht. pp 219–249

    Google Scholar 

  22. Almada-Lobo B, Oliveira JF, Carravilla MA (2008) Production planning and scheduling in the glass container industry: a vns approach. Int J Prod Econ 114(1):363–375

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Glover F (1996) Tabu search and adaptive memory programing advances, applications and challenges. In: Interfaces in computer science and operations research. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 1–75

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Luis Guimarães, Rui Santos & Bernardo Almada-Lobo

Authors
  1. Luis Guimarães
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rui Santos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Bernardo Almada-Lobo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bernardo Almada-Lobo.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Guimarães, L., Santos, R. & Almada-Lobo, B. Scheduling wafer slicing by multi-wire saw manufacturing in photovoltaic industry: a case study. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 53, 1129–1139 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-010-2906-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-010-2906-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation