A heuristic for adaptive production scheduling and control in flow shop production

Abstract

Although research in flow shop production scheduling has been carried out for many decades, there is still a gap between theoretical research and industrial applications – especially in some manufacturing paradigms in which adaptive production control is necessary, such as in one-of-a-kind production (OKP). This paper presents an average processing time and lever (APT-LVR) heuristic, integrated with a closed-loop feedback control scheme, to achieve adaptive production scheduling and control in flow shop production. Having been implemented in a local OKP company, our APT-LVR based production scheduling and control system demonstrates a significant potential to improve the company's production efficiency and competitiveness.

Keywords:

• scheduling
• adaptive production control
• coloured Petri nets
• flow shop
• one-of-a-kind production (OKP)

Acknowledgments

This research project has been funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada through its Strategic Project programme and Gienow Windows and Doors LP, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We highly appreciate those anonymous reviewers’ comments, which were valuable to improve the quality of this paper.