Abstract: In view of the fact that the production plan of traditional knitting workshop relies on experience to arrange production, it is inevitable to occur unreasonable arrangement and waste of resources. The paper analyzes the restrictive factors affecting production scheduling, including order quantity, product delivery time, machine production capacity, machine load, etc. The earliest deadline priority algorithm is adopted to realize the intelligent production scheduling function of knitting MES system by combining with various factors affecting production scheduling. The paper carried out a simulation test based on the order data information of a knitting workshop on January, and estimated the days required for the completion of all orders, the effective working days, and total starting-up time, in manual and system modes, respectively. Results indicated that the intelligent scheduling can shorten the production cycle effectively, so as to maximize the use of enterprise resources and improve the competitiveness of enterprises.

Key words: knitting production; intelligent production scheduling; constraint factors; EDF algorithm