Study on Job Shop Scheduling for Keeping the Requested Shipping Sequence by Production System Modeling and Backward Simulation

Abstract

In the field of high-mix low-volume production, to keep shipping deadline of each order is one of key factors due to the reason for make-to-order production. However, this type of production has a enormous number of parts to be handled, complicated work procedures, and many restrictions on production resources. Therefore, it is difficult to make an optimal production plan considering shipping deadline and efficient usage of production resources. In this paper, the objective is to create work plans which meet the due date with short lead times as much as possible in a job shop type production line. First, we propose the method how to model and represent the complex data of an entire factory structure. Then, based on this model, it was proved that we can obtain the production plan with short lead times that emphasizes compliance with the sequence of product shipping by backward discrete event simulation. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the proposed method and the validity of the obtained production plan are confirmed by using actual factory processes and real data.