“A Hybrid Method for Selecting Scheduling Schemes in a Manufacturing Environment

Scheduling is defined as the allocation of resources, machinery or people, to accomplish specific tasks over a certain time-slot. Scheduling is one of the most important functions within an industrial system. Throughout a successful scheduling policy, the utilization of resources is optimized and goods are produced on time to meet demand, the basic elements that contribute to the welfare of the business. Simultaneously, scheduling has always been one of the most difficult and challenging tasks given the dynamic nature of the industrial environment. Under certain circumstances, it is often required revision of existing schedules. The action of revising existing schedules is called Rescheduling. However, rescheduling causes nervousness to the production systems. In this paper, we propose a methodology for selecting schedules from a set of alternatives that fit best to particular environments, thus reducing the need for revising schedules, before any of these is being dispatched to the production floor. The proposed method combines techniques such as Design of Experiment, Simulation Modeling, and Multi-criteria Decision. The objective of developing such a method is to evaluate through a structured approach the performance of scheduling schemas and select the most appropriate one for the particular manufacturing environment, thus providing a valuable aid to the responsible person for dispatching schedules in production lines. - vi - Before developing the proposed model, the main methodologies and techniques regarding scheduling are presented through the extensive literature review, as well as their associated advantages and drawbacks. Following the literature review, we establish the theoretical background and we develop the proposed scheduling scheme. Finally, a case study that makes use of the proposed methodology is demonstrated, and the respective results regarding selected performance metrics are presented. The study concludes with the advantages and the limitations the method exhibits, proposing possible directions for further research and improvements.