ABSTRACT

Optimization is the science of getting best results subject to various resource constraints. When optimization is applied to different manufacturing functions, we call this subject manufacturing optimization. There is a lot of scope for optimizing various manufacturing functions such as design, planning, operation, quality control, maintenance, and so forth. Nowadays, professionals from academic institutions and industries have started realizing the importance of this new manufacturing optimization, in order to improve performance. In the past, due to lack of computational facilities and optimization techniques, few attempts were made to formulate the various manufacturing activities as optimization problems and to develop the procedures for the same. Today, many computing facilities and numerous non-conventional techniques-particularly intelligent techniquesare available for constructing the mathematical model and to develop the procedure and software. It is proposed to formulate the various manufacturing activities as optimization problems and to use different intelligent techniques for solving the same.