Overview of finite capacity scheduling using biological control principles

The changing manufacturing settings characterised by insistent competition globally and dynamics in process technology calls for new ways of enabling the survival of manufacturing systems by making them easily adaptable to facilitate the integration of new technologies and new functions to many manufacturing perturbations. Scheduling of processes and activities of manufacturing systems and services is a formidable task which aims at satisfying the demands, meeting due dates for products, and increasing throughput by reducing the setup times by applying appropriate control strategies. This paper gives an overview of process scheduling of resources for manufacturing systems and service provision using biological control principles. The scheduling technique proposed here strives at making manufacturing units autonomous thereby reducing the high levels of time required in manual planning of tasks. This paper investigates the biological control techniques that can be applied in manufacturing systems.