ABSTRACT
This chapter presents reviews of the existing studies pertaining to planning problems dealt in this study. Planning hierarchies have been proposed for the dynamic production environment as well as in static production environment. Hildebrant was the first to consider the overall flexible manufacturing system (FMS) production planning and control problems. In a study, K. E. Stecke classifies FMS problems into four categories: Design, Planning, Scheduling, and Control. There are some constraints that make part grouping an indispensable component of FMS planning problems. Group Technology (GT) techniques have proved to be useful in selecting parts at the design stage of FMS. However, in the production stage, the machine tools and parts for processing have been fixed; and the problem is to utilize optimally the FMS. The results of M. L. Smith's survey bring to light the disparities in the importance attached to the loading objectives between the research studies and the users of FMS.
