Model of production system evaluation with the influence of FDM machine reliability and process-dependent product quality

This paper investigates the Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) with FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) machine unavailability constraints due to Predictive Maintenance (PdM) tasks, under the objective of minimizing the makespan, total tardiness and machine idle time. The Ant-Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm is elaborated to deal with the JSSP. The reliability characteristics of the critical machine (FDM) influence the product as well as the production system quality. PdM periods are estimated based on historical data on failure-free times of the FDM machine components and deviations from the standards established for the key process parameters: infill density, layer thickness and extruder temperature. The standards for the key process parameters are identified based on investigation of the mechanical properties of printed elements. The impact of failure time and the number of nonstandard measurements of parameters on the quality of the Job Shop System (JSS) are observed. Failure rate of the FDM machine is corrected with the probability of a stoppage in the future period due to the “outlier” in measurements of any key parameters of the additive process. The quality robustness of production schedules increases with the disturbance-free operation of the FDM up to the peak value. After reaching the peak value the quality robustness decreases. The original issue of this paper is a model of scheduling production and maintenance tasks in a job shop system with an FDM machine as a bottleneck using ACO. Additionally, an original FDM-reliability model is also proposed. The model is based on weighted p-moving averages of the observed number of deviations from the norms, established for key process parameters such as fill density, layer thickness and extruder temperature.