Game theoretical framework for process plan decision of jobs in networked manufacturing

In this paper, we describe a new methodology based on game theory for optimal process plan decision of jobs in networked manufacturing environment. The main contribution of this study can be focused on modeling a game theoretic framework for optimal process plan decision problem to analyze strategic behaviors of multiple jobs. The optimal process plan decision problem is formulated as a non-cooperative game with complete information. This game is divided into two sub games named process plan decision sub game and job scheduling sub game. The former provides the latter with players while the latter provides the former with payoff values. Endeavoring to solve this game more efficiently and effectively, a two-level nested solution algorithm using Genetic Algorithm (GA) is proposed. A numerical example is presented to investigate the feasibility of the above approach.