Coordinated seru scheduling and distribution operation problems with DeJong’s learning effects

Abstract

Inspired by the advantage of just-in-time philosophy, zero-inventory is common in many industries, especially those need fast response with a short lifespan. Accordingly, this paper focuses on coordinated production scheduling and distribution operation problems considering workers’ DeJong’s learning effects in seru production system (SPS), in which seru is a relatively new-type manufacturing mode originating from Japan and can achieve fast response in practice. Two variants of coordinated seru scheduling and distribution operation problems are studied, and the corresponding 0–1 integer programming model is formulated. By analyzing the mathematical property, the polynomial computation time of the former is able to be determined, and an intractability and NP-hardness proof is provided for the latter. The dynamic programming-based exact algorithm and the heuristic ant colony optimization algorithm are developed respectively. Computational experiments are conducted finally, and a series of experimental results indicate that the Dejong’s learning effect has a significant influence on coordinated seru scheduling and distribution operation problems, meanwhile a remarkable benefit (the average improvement is 16.97%) can be achieved by the coordinated production scheduling and distribution operation in SPS.