Comparison of Scheduling Rules in a Flow Shop with Multiple Processors: A Simulation

Abstract

Provo, UtahThis simulation study investigated the effect on mean flow time and makespan of localized scheduling rules with dynamically established priorities in a flow shop with multiple processors. The study examined the effects of problem characteristics (number of jobs, number of machine stages and number of parallel processors at each stage) and the performance of priority rules using regression analysis. Although structural characteristics explained most of the variation in performance, priority rules also had an effect. The "shortest processing time first" rule was consistently superior; its superiority was greater for mean flow time than for makespan.

The hybrid flow shop scheduling problem

“…For instance [25] compares 10 dispatching rules for the m-stage problem with the maximum tardiness criterion. Later, in [28], simulation studies are carried out to further analyze the performance of dispatching rules for the same problem with the makespan and the maximum tardiness objectives. Simulation was also employed to analyze the effectiveness of dispatching rules in [57].…”

Efficiency of the solution representations for the hybrid flow shop scheduling problem with makespan objective

“…• Q(SPT) (Allahverdi and Al-Anzi, 2006;Barman, 1997;Brah and Wheeler, 1998;Jayamohan and Rajendran, 2000;Han et al, 2018;Fernandez-Viagas et al, 2018a;Hunsucker and Shah, 1992). Jobs are first ordered in each stage according to non-decreasing order of their completion times in the previous stage.…”

A Heuristic Based On Makespan Lower Bounds in Flow Shops with Multiple Processors

“…Apart from these heuristics, two very commonly used dispatching, or priority rules are also used, namely, the Shortest Processing Time (SPT) and the Longest Processing Time (LPT). In the studies by Brah, Santos and Hunsucker (1989), Hunsucker and Shah (1994) and Brah and Wheeler (1998), SPT proves to be the best priority rule for the makespan criteria among the other usual dispatching techniques.…”