1. On discrete lot streaming in no-wait flow shops.
- Author
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Jiang Chen and Steiner, George
- Subjects
- *
PRODUCTION engineering , *PRODUCTION scheduling , *LINEAR programming , *INDUSTRIAL engineering , *MECHANICAL engineering , *MANUFACTURING processes , *PRODUCTION planning , *MATHEMATICAL programming , *ENGINEERING - Abstract
Lot streaming is the process of splitting a job or lot to allow overlapping between successive operations in a multistage production system. This use of transfer lots usually results in a substantially shorter makespan for the corresponding schedule. In this paper, we study the discrete lot streaming problem for a single job in no-wait flow shops. We present a new linear programming formulation for the problem. We show that the optimal solutions are the same for the m x 2 case with or without no-wait constraints. We also present a fast, polynomial-time solution method for this case. For the general case, we prove that any solution which is 'close' to the continuous optimal solution will be a good approximation for the discrete problem. This property allows us to present two quickly obtainable approximations of very good quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2003
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