Jobshop lot streaming with routing flexibility, sequence-dependent setups, machine release dates and lag time

Abstract

Lot streaming is a technique of splitting production lots into smaller sublots in a multi-stage manufacturing system so that operations of a given lot can overlap. This technique can reduce the manufacturing makespan and is an effective tool in time-based manufacturing. Research on lot streaming models and solution procedures for flexible jobshops has been limited. The flexible jobshop scheduling problem is an extension of the classical jobshop scheduling problem by allowing an operation to be assigned to one of a set of eligible machines during scheduling. In this paper we develop a lot streaming model for a flexible jobshop environment. The model considers several pragmatic issues such as sequence-dependent setup times, the attached or detached nature of the setups, the machine release date and the lag time. In order to solve the developed model efficiently, an island-model parallel genetic algorithm is proposed. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the features of the proposed model and compare the computational performance of the parallel genetic algorithm with the sequential algorithm. The results are very encouraging.

Keywords:

• lot streaming
• flexible jobshop scheduling
• sequence dependent setup
• machine release date
• lag time
• parallel genetic algorithm

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by a Discovery Grant from NSERC and by Faculty Research Support Funds from the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. We thank RQCHP (Réseau québécois en calcul de haute performance http://www.rqchp.qc.ca/) for its assistance in providing access to the parallel computing facilities.