A comprehensive analysis of group scheduling heuristics in a job shop cell

Abstract

This paper describes a broad-based simulation study of the performance of two-stage group scheduling heuristics in a job shop cell. The objective of this study was to examine the direct and interactive effects of a variety of shop factors on the performance of the best, previously reported, group scheduling heuristics. A set of traditional single-stage scheduling heuristics were examined as well. Shop factors considered include: setup to runtime ratio, cell load level and variability of inter-arrival times. An assumption common to group scheduling research which provides for an equal division of the part family into subfamilies is also examined. This is accomplished through the creation of an alternative scenario where the majority of the parts are assigned to one subfamily, i.e. one subfamily dominates the part family population. The effects of set up to runtime ratio and cell load have been examined in previous group scheduling research, but not in conjunction with the inter-arrival time variability fac...