A New Proposed Heuristic for Job Shop and Flow Shop Scheduling Problem

Abstract

Scheduling is an essential and critical component of all manufacturing processes that has a major impact on productivity and efficiency of a firm. It plays a vital role in the optimization of the manufacturing times and costs that ultimately results in energy efficient processes. The optimization of job-shop and flow shop process scheduling problem is still a challenge to researchers and is far from being completely solved due to its combinatorial nature. It has been estimated that more than 75% of manufacturing processes occur in small batches. In such environments, processes must be able to perform a variety of operations on a mix of different batches. Job shop and flow shop scheduling optimization is the response to such low batch manufacturing problems. In this research, a novel proposed heuristic (P.H) solution approach for job shop and flow shop scheduling problem is presented with the objective of optimizing the overall Make span (Cmax). The proposed P.H is the combination of Longest Processing Time (LPT) and Shortest Processing Time (SPT) process schedule. It is composed of eight sequences, eight Makespan values are calculated and then minimum of these is selected as a final Makespan. The proposed P.H is explained with the help of a detailed example. Comparative analysis tables are constructed for distinct set of benchmark problems from the literature to check the validity and effectiveness of the proposed heuristic. The presented P.H has achieved batch-job process schedules that have outperformed the traditional heuristics. The results are encouraging and show that the proposed heuristic is a valid methodology for batch process and job shop scheduling optimization.