TFT-LCD是台灣於本世紀中新興的一項產業。在這複雜的產業中結合了半導體產業、化學材料產業及光電產業,彷彿一個小型的供應鏈體系。其中,光電產業中之彩色濾光片(Color Filter),除了在材料成本中佔有比例最高之外,也是目前液晶顯示器彩色化之主要工具。目前,彩色濾光片產業的主要問題在於每次更改製品別所需的整備時間(Setup Time)極長,由於機台昂貴而使折舊成本相對提高。為了能夠降低這方面的成本,減少「換線」次數便成了彩色濾光片產業重要的課題。本研究將針對考量整備時間和工作次序相依的流程式工廠排程問題,從蟻群演算法(Ant Colony Optimization)中找到合適之排程模式,併入訂單機制求得最小延遲和提早懲罰值(Earliness/Tardiness Penalties),以回應實際產業與顧客訂單交期。演算法的設計是強調如何處理此排程問題的一些實際情況與要求。
A scheduling problem of the color filter manufacturing in TFT LCD industry is considered in this paper. The problem under consideration is a flow shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times. The objective is to schedule the order completion times as close to the due dates as possible to minimize the earliness/tardiness penalties, subject to the production capacity constraints and fulfillment of production demands. A modified ant colony optimization (ACO) approach is proposed to find the optimal schedule for this problem. The proposed approach was designed to focus on the practical requirements in the color filter process.