Abstract
A new batch process scheduling problem is studied in this paper. The problem considers several machines where the jobs are processed and a team of specialists who analyze the jobs’ results. Two operations that add complexity to the problem are the potential repetition of one or more processes and the probabilistic decision about the reprocessing of the jobs. A known State-Task Network partially represents the problem, so it is extended to include the two operations mentioned before and also the participation of a technical team. Based on this representation, an integer programming model is formulated for the integrated scheduling problem so that all the resources, material and human, are used in the best possible way. Actual data from a research lab located in the Region del Maule, Chile, illustrates the model’s performance. The results showed that the scheduling obtained significantly contributed to planning the resources at the research lab. Changes in the technical team and instruments are possible so that the model could also be executed, only changing the corresponding parameters. Furthermore, additional experiments to the case study were conducted to study the performance of the model by increasing the size of the parameters.
Highlights
Scheduling optimization comprises several classes of problems that include the well-known Flow Shop, Job Shop, and Open Shop
Machines are flexible simultaneously, considering their multi-objective function green production, human factor indicators, and minimization of the makespan. In this model, one of the characteristics is the following: "Each operation can be performed only once on one machine, and its sequence is respected for every job." This fact is different in our scheduling problem, where a batch could be reprocessed
A valuable reference for our research is the review paper of [5], where they presented a general classification for scheduling problems of batch processes and the corresponding optimization models
Summary
Scheduling optimization comprises several classes of problems that include the well-known Flow Shop, Job Shop, and Open Shop. The integration of machines and workers in semiconductor manufacturing has not been explored to our knowledge Another application is the industry of chemical processes, such as the manufacture of lubricants, as explained by [4], where it is pretty common for intermediates to be shared among two or more products, batches of the material may have to be split or merged. Despite the literature’s related works on batch processes, the research lab’s problem includes other particularities, such as the integration between machines and workers, and needing innovation in modeling the problem. The optimization model presents a new integration between machines and a team to the showed by [6] since our model includes different characteristics.
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