Supply Chain Scheduling: Origins and Application to Sequencing, Batching and Lot Sizing

Abstract

Abstract Research on supply chains has focused mainly on the coordination of strategic decisions, whereas operational issues have been studied much less. However, the coordination of operational decisions is often important, especially for time‐sensitive, customized, and made‐to‐order products. The topic of this article, supply chain scheduling, is the study of the coordination of operational decisions, including scheduling, among supply chain partners with conflicting objectives. Supply chain scheduling uses short planning horizons with reliable data, optimization of decisions, and the exact evaluation of coordination issues. This article discusses the origins of supply chain scheduling, and their relationship to other modern extensions of classical scheduling theory, including multicriteria scheduling, integrated scheduling and sequencing games. Specific examples of supply chain scheduling are discussed for the coordination of scheduling, batching, and lot‐sizing decisions. Various methodologies within supply chain scheduling evaluate both the conflict between supply chain partners and also the benefit to overall supply chain performance from cooperation. The design of incentives and game theory solutions that promote cooperation is an important prescriptive feature of this rapidly evolving research area.