Scheduling an assembly job shop production system with multiple objectives: a simulation study

Abstract

This paper presents the salient aspects of the performance analysis of two mechanisms for shop floor control namely, order review/release (ORR) and dispatching rules in an assembly job shop system in a multi-objective environment. A simulation model of an assembly job shop is developed for experimentation with eight dispatching rules and four ORR mechanisms from the literature. An ORR policy based on the concept of backward scheduling and interval release is developed and incorporated in the simulation model. Grey relational analysis is used for ranking the ORR policy-dispatching rule combinations. Multivariate and univariate hypotheses are developed. The results are analysed using ANOVA and MANOVA. The analysis of results reveals that integrating dispatching rules with ORR policies provides better system performance than using dispatching rules alone. The proposed ORR policy namely, backward scheduling with interval release policy provides better results than other ORR polices.