Production Scheduling:

operations scheduling
with applications in
manufacturing and services
Pei-Chann Chang
RM 2614, tel. 2305,
iepchang@saturn.yzu.edu.tw
Industrial Engineering and
Management
Yuan Ze University, Taiwan
Production Scheduling

P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Literature

Book: Operations Scheduling with applicati

in manufacturing and services
Authors: M. Pinedo, X. Chao

Handouts, also downloadable from website

Production Scheduling

P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Exam
The following methods must be studied thoroughly
(one or two questions about these will be in the exam):
adaptive search
branch-and-bound, beam-search
shifting bottleneck
Aside from the discussed chapters from the book,
the handouts must be well studied.

Production Scheduling

P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Scheduling: definition
Allocation of jobs to scarce resources
the types of jobs and resources depend on the
specific situation
Combinatorial optimization problem
maximize/minimize objective
subject to constraints
Production Scheduling

P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Application of Scheduling

Sales Dept.

order

Production Dept.

Inventory Dept.

Production Management Dept.

shipping

customer

Problem Complexity Machine Order Variety

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P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Application of Scheduling
MTO (Make to Order)

Produce way

MTS (Make to Stock)

Supply way

Inventor
y

semi-finished
goods

BTO (Build to Order)

Time Demand

Short

Medium

Long

Tendency of Business:
BTO (Build To Order)
CTO (Configuration To Order)

Production Scheduling

P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Theory of Production Scheduling

I. Shop Type
a.
b.
c.

Single Machine
Total identical
Parallel Machine
Partial identical
(Flow Shop : Uni-direction)
M1

d.

M2

M3

M4

(Job Shop : Multi-direction)

M1

M4

M3
M2

e.

(Open Shop: No direction)

Production Scheduling

P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Theory of Production Scheduling

II. Job Type

a.

Dependent Job
order
product
operation

b.

part
assembly

Independent Job

Production Scheduling

P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Theory of Production Scheduling

III. Objective Function

Objectives

1. Completion time - Min Max Ci

2. Tardiness
- Min Tmax
Note Reasonable Due Date

3. Flow time

Production Scheduling

- Min F

P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Application areas
Manufacturing, e.g.:
job shop / flow shop scheduling
workforce scheduling
tool scheduling

Services, e.g.:
Hotel / airline reservation systems
Hospitals (operating rooms)

Transportation and distribution, e.g.:

vehicle scheduling, and routing
railways
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Application areas (cont.)

Information processing and communications:
CPUs, series and parallel computing
call centers
Time-tabling, e.g.:
lecture planning at a University
soccer competition
flight scheduling
Warehousing, e.g.:
AGV scheduling, and routing
Maintenance, e.g.:
scheduling maintenance of a fleet of ships
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Scheduling in manufacturing
Due to increasing market competition, companies strive
to:
shorten delivery times
increase variety in end-products
shorten production lead times
increase resource utilization
improve quality, reduce WIP
prevent production disturbances (machine
breakdowns)
--> more products in less time!
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Scheduling in services
Workforce Scheduling in
Call Centers
Hospitals
Employment agencies
Schools, universities
Reservation Systems in
Airlines
Hotels
Car Rentals
Travel Agencies
Postal services
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Important objectives to be
displayed
Due Date Related
Number of late jobs
Maximum lateness
Average lateness, tardiness
Productivity and Inventory Related
Total Setup Time
Total Machine Idle Time
Average Time Jobs Remain in System, WIP
Resource usage
resource shortage
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Important characteristics of
optimization techniques
Quality of Solutions Obtained
(How Close to Optimal?)
Amount of CPU-Time Needed
(Real-Time on a PC?)
Ease of Development and Implementation
(How much time needed to code,
test, adjust and modify)
Implementation costs
(Are expensive LP-solvers required?)
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Our approach
Scheduling problem
Problem
formulation
Model
Solve with
algorithms
Conclusions
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Theory of Production Scheduling

IV. Methodology
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

Mixed Integer Linear Programming

Dynamic Programming
Branch and Bound
Time
Constraint Programming
Heuristics

Genetic Algorithm
Neural Network
Simulated Annealing
Tabu Search
Ant Colony
Evolutionary Algorithm
Fuzzy Logistics

NP problem

10 20 30 40

#jobs

.
.
.

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Future Development

Alternate Routing

Multiple Objectives

Machine break down -Rescheduling

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Topic 1
Setting up the Scheduling Problem

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P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Modeling
Three components to any model:
1. Decision variables
This is what we can change
to affect the system, that is,
the variables we can decide
upon
2. Objective function
E.g, cost to be minimized,
quality measure to be
maximized
3. Constraints
Which values the decision
variables can be set to
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Decision Variables
Three basic types of solutions:
A sequence: a permutation of the jobs
A schedule: allocation of the jobs in a more
complicated setting of the environment
A scheduling policy: determines the next job
given the current state of the system

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Model Characteristics
Multiple factors:
Number of machine and resources,
configuration and layout,
level of automation, etc.

Our terminology:
Resource = machine (m)
Entity requiring the resource = job (n)

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Example:
Scheduling Problem:
The data for the newspaper reading problem
Reader get up at

reading order and times in mins.

Algy

8:30

F.T(60)

G (30)

D.E (2)

S (5)

Bertie

8:45

G (75)

D.E (3)

F.T(25)

S (10)

Charles

8:45

D.E (5)

G (15)

F.T(10)

S (30)

Digby

9:30

S (90)

F.T (1)

G (1)

D.E (1)

Ask: What is the earliest time they may leave?

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P.C. Chang, IEM, YZU.

Sol:
Estimation based on jobs (persons):

Jobs

J1

Algy

8:30 + (60+30+2+5)

J2

Bertie

8:45 + (75+3+25+10) = 10:38

J3 Charles

8:45 + (5+15+10+30)

J4

9:30 + (90+1+1+1)

Digby

= 10:07
= 09:45
= 11:03
Lower Bound 1
(Jobs base bound)

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Sol:
Estimation based on machine (newspaper):

machines

M1

F.T

8:30 + (60+25+10+1)

= 10:06

M2

S.

9:15 + (5+10+30+90)

= 11:30

M3

G.T

8:45 + (30+75+15+1)

M4

D.E

8:45 + (2+3+5+1)

Why?

= 10:46
= 08:56

Lower Bound 2
(machine base bound)
LB = Max(LB1, LB2) = Max(11:03, 11:30) = 11:30
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HW.
1.
2.
3.

4.

How many different schedules, feasible and infeasible are

there?
What is the earliest time that Algy and his friends can leave
for the country?
Digby decides that the delights for a day in the country are
not for him, He will spend the morning in bed. What is the
earliest time that Algy, Bertie and Charles may leave ?
Do you need to list every feasible solution when solving
prob.2 & 3? If not, please explain in detail the procedure to
your answer without listing every feasible solution.

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