Solving the cyclic job shop scheduling problem with linear precedence constraints using CP techniques

Abstract

A cyclic scheduling problem is a problem which, under the requirement of respecting a finite set of constraints consists of ordering a finite set of tasks occurring in an indefinite number of times. In this paper, we propose, by employing different techniques that have been developed by the constraint programming (CP) community, to attack the cyclic job shop scheduling problem with linear precedence constraints. Indeed, this problem can be cut as a constraint satisfaction problem or a constraint optimization problem. By limiting the periodicity of the searched solution, we show that a complete tree search approach is viable since it allows giving satisfactory results while minimizing the overall execution time. Furthermore, such a solution is more adaptable to an industrial context since a limited periodicity can be easily exploited.