Optimization of Performance Measures of Flexible Flow Shop Scheduling Under Uncertainty

Abstract

The prime objective of the manufacturing industry is to meet the non-decreasing newlinedemand of customers with quality products. Evaluation of optimal job sequence can newlinelargely increase the productivity, thereby fulfilling the aim of an enterprise. In this newlinetechnology-driven market, the sustainability of a manufacturing industry is solely newlinedependent on the customer-based market where the paradigm of an ideal product is newlineoften changing, and the demand for customized products is at its record height. newlineScheduling aims at allocation of resources to perform a group of tasks over a period of newlinetime in such a manner that some performance goals such as flow time, tardiness, newlinelateness, and make-span can be minimized. Usually, determining the optimal job newlinesequence is an arduous task due to the fact that unit increase in the factors exponentially newlineincreases the problem size. An efficient scheduling facilitates the optimum use of its newlineresources viz. processing machines, available floor space, material handling and newlinestorage, work hour etc., thereby reducing wastage. Moreover, on-time delivery plays a newlinecrucial factor for customer satisfaction as it may result in a significant loss of goodwill. newlineThe objective of increasing productivity and decreasing lateness can be achieved by newlineoptimizing the make-span, mean flow time and total number of tardy or late jobs. Since newlineall the scheduling criteria are important from business operation point of view, it is vital newlineto optimize all the objectives simultaneously instead of a single objective. From the newlineperspective of a manufacturing firms it is essentially important to optimize the floorspace newline newlineutilization and decrease the bottleneck formation. In industry this objective is newlineachieved by installing identical parallel machines that can operate the same set of newlineoperations at every stage in the production shop. In case, the jobs visiting the different newlinestages of the manufacturing industry in same order is termed as flexible flow-shop newlinescheduling (FFSS). Optimizing the performance parameters for FFSS is a case of nondet