A fundamental scheduling problem is to determine a production start (ready) time for jobs based on customer-specified due dates. Typically, the objective is to delay the ready time in an attempt to minimize work-in-process inventory and maximize production system utilization. In many practical situations, notably remanufacturing operations, highly variable operation times and intricate process plans complicate this problem. In such a case, a specific ready time implies a confidence of on-time completion. Prior analytical results imply the optimal solution is a function of: (i) customer due dates; (ii) desired confidence levels; and (iii) stochastic makespan minimization. This paper proposes the use of a network flow model to represent a remanufacturing flowshop and then presents a structured heuristic approach that is able to develop sequences and ready times for remanufacturing systems by balancing the three factors. A broad experimental design is used to demonstrate that the proposed scheduling method outperforms previous list rules in terms of the calculated mean and robustness values.
Determining sequence and ready times in a remanufacturing system
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