Heuristic Scheduling of Job Orders in a Build-to-Order Manufacturing System

Abstract

With the continuous development of technology, traditional manual work has been becoming more and more automated. Most large or medium-sized companies have applied Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software into their business and production activities. However, since many small firms cannot afford ERP because of its expensive cost, they often still employ manual work for the same tasks this software resolves, especially for scheduling. This paper aims to provide a possible solution for small businesses to try automated scheduling and discover whether it can help much. There are two main ways to make this determination: a mathematical model and a heuristic model, which are suitable for assessing low-and medium-sized workloads, respectively. This case study was carried out in a small domestic interior furniture company, particularly in scheduling for their customized products in two-stage flow shop. Normally, they produce according to the sequence of customers' orders. However, when we applied these supportive tools with batch-processing machines, they experienced enhanced production performance due to diminishing setup time for distinctive items and a more streamlined arrangement of job sequences. These changes were implemented for some small companies that do not use many production stages and have a suitable number of jobs and customers. If this method were applied to larger demands, it would need further improvement and development to become a complete tool that can perform like a part of an ERP system.