A TWO-STAGE FLOWSHOP SCHEDULING WITH LIMITED BUFFER STORAGE

• Published in: Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research (APJOR) Vol. 26; no. 4; pp. 503 - 522
• Main Authors: SU, LING-HUEY, YANG, DAR-LI, CHOU, HOU-KUAN
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore World Scientific Publishing Co. & Operational Research Society of Singapore 01.08.2009; World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd; World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte., Ltd
• Series: Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research (APJOR)
• Subjects: Algorithms; batch machine; Batch processing; discrete machine; Flowshop; Integrated circuits; Job shops; limited buffer storage; Machinery; Operations research; Optimization; Production scheduling; Scheduling; Studies; limited buffer storage; batch machine; discrete machine; Flowshop
• ISSN: 0217-5959; 1793-7019; 1793-7019; 0217-5959
• DOI: 10.1142/S0217595909002328

This study addresses a two-stage flowshop with a batch machine in stage 1 and a discrete machine in stage 2, subject to the constraint that the input buffer of the discrete machine can only host limited number of jobs. The batch machine processes a batch of jobs simultaneously, and the discrete machine processes one job at a time. The objective function of the problem is the makespan minimization. Several properties are proposed to solve the special case of the problem optimally. An effective heuristic is presented, and a branch-and-bound procedure is proposed for benchmarking. Extensive experimentation shows that the heuristic yields good results.