An experimental study of scheduling a dynamic hybrid flow shop with sequence-dependent setup times

This paper presents the salient aspects of a simulation-based experimental study of scheduling rules for scheduling a dynamic hybrid flow shop with sequence-dependent setup times. A discrete-event simulation model of the hybrid flow shop system is developed for the purpose of experimentation. Seven adapted heuristic algorithms from the literature are incorporated in the simulation model. Five new heuristic algorithms are proposed and implemented. Simulation experiments have been conducted under various experimental conditions characterized by factors such as shop load and setup time ratio. The simulation results are analyzed using statistical significance tests. The results indicate that one of the proposed rules performs better for mean flow time measure and another one performs better for mean tardiness measure.

Keywords:

: Dynamic hybrid flow shop , Sequence-dependent setup times , Heuristics , Simulation , Schedulingrules