A Flexible Manufacturing System, or FMS, is a highly automated, distributed and feed-back controlled system of data, information and physical processors. A typical system may include computer, and manually controlled machine tools, robots and other equipment's in which decisions have to be taken real-time. This is possible if all information processors (including the human resources of such systems) are “well informed,” meaning that they have the right information at the right time, in the format and mode needed to take responsible decisions within given time constraints.

The dynamic scheduler of an FMS is responsible for providing the production system with the sequence in which parts have to be manufactured.

The term “dynamic” refers to the fact that FMSs can react to rapid changes, such as random part arrivals, thus the dynamic scheduler must have the capability of re-scheduling the system typically in less time it takes to change/load or unload a part onto/from a machine. (As an...