Integrated scheduling of distributed production and distribution in group manufacturing with uncertain travel time

Abstract

This paper presents a novel integrated distributed production and distribution scheduling problem in group manufacturing with uncertain travel time (IDPDSP-GM-UTT), in which products are firstly produced in several distributed hybrid flow shops and then delivered to several retailers in batches. The proposed model considers both geographical dispersion of multi-factories and variable travel time between factories and retailers caused by time-varying dynamics of road network, which describes the production environment more authentic. Additionally, a mathematical model is developed to find the optimal quantity of raw material, delivery plan, and punishment of earliness and tardiness with the objective of minimizing total costs. Then, an improved genetic algorithm with two-stage heuristic mutation scheduling strategy and tabu search for local optimization (GA-2HMS&TS) is designed to solve the proposed model. To verify the performances of the proposed method, several experiments by adopting test experimental examples with different scales are performed. The computational results exhibit that the GA-2HMS&TS not only significantly reduces the total cost of production and distribution, but also outperforms all of its rivals. In addition, the robustness of the proposed models is also analyzed with regard to the different road conditions.