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Relative performance evaluation of permutation and non-permutation schedules in flowline-based manufacturing systems with flowtime objective

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Abstract

The flowline-based manufacturing system (FBMS) is a manufacturing environment wherein machines are arranged in the order in which jobs undergo operations, and jobs have an identical and uni-directional flow pattern. However, some or all jobs may not require processing on some machines. Scheduling of jobs in such a FBMS is considered in this paper with the focus on the development of non-permutation schedules. The significance of non-permutation schedules in improving the schedule performance measures, in the context of FBMS’s, is first brought out. A heuristic procedure to derive non-permutation schedules from a given permutation schedule is subsequently proposed. The minimization of total flowtime of jobs is considered as the objective in the first instance, followed by the consideration of the minimization of total weighted flowtime of jobs. An extensive computational experimentation has been performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed heuristic in improving the performance measures. Further, the performance of the proposed heuristic in generating non-permutation schedules has been compared with that of the benchmark dispatching rules namely, the SPT and SWPT rules.

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Abbreviations

n :

Total number of jobs available at time zero

m :

Number of machines in the FBMS

t (i, j):

Processing time of job i on machine j

σ :

Set of jobs already scheduled, out of n jobs, at the given instant τ

i :

Job to be scheduled

ST (i, j):

Start time of job i on machine j

FT (i, j):

Finish time of job i on machine j

{S j}:

Job sequence on machine j. This defines the sequence in which jobs are processed on machine j.

n j :

Number of jobs processed on machine j

\(s^{j}_{k}\) :

Job processed in the k-th position of {S j} on machine j

RST (k, j):

On machine j, start time of job i found in the k-th position of {S j} (i.e., start time of job \(s^{j}_{k}\) on machine j)

RFT (k, j):

On machine j, finish time of job i found in the k-th position of {S j} (i.e., finish time of job \(s^{j}_{k}\) on machine j)

CT i :

Completion time of the last operation of job i

w i :

Weight (or relative importance or relative holding cost) for job i

F σ :

Total flowtime of jobs in σ (i.e., sum of CT i ’s over all scheduled jobs)

W σ :

Total weighted flowtime of jobs in σ (i.e., sum of (w i ×CT i )’s over all scheduled jobs)

MS :

Makespan of the scheduled job set

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Production Engineering, Annamalai University, Annamalainagar—608002, India

    S. Pugazhendhi & N. Anantharaman

  2. Industrial Engineering and Management Division, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai—600 036, India

    S. Thiagarajan & C. Rajendran

Authors
  1. S. Pugazhendhi
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  2. S. Thiagarajan
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  3. C. Rajendran
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  4. N. Anantharaman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to C. Rajendran.

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Pugazhendhi, S., Thiagarajan, S., Rajendran, C. et al. Relative performance evaluation of permutation and non-permutation schedules in flowline-based manufacturing systems with flowtime objective. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 23, 820–830 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-003-1661-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-003-1661-7

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