A resource-constrained assembly job shop scheduling problem with Lot Streaming technique

To ensure effective shop floor production, it is vital to consider the capital investment. Among most of the operational costs, resource must be one of the critical cost components. Since each operation consumes resources, the determination of resource level is surely a strategic decision. For the first time, the application of Lot Streaming (LS) technique is extended to a Resource-Constrained Assembly Job Shop Scheduling Problem (RC_AJSSP). In general, AJSSP first starts with Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) and then appends an assembly stage for final product assembly. The primary objective of the model is the minimization of total lateness cost of all final products. To enhance the model usefulness, two more experimental factors are introduced as common part ratio and workload index. Hence, an innovative approach with Genetic Algorithm (GA) is proposed. To examine its goodness, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is the benchmarked method. Computational results suggest that GA can outperform PSO in terms of optimization power and computational effort for all test problems. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.