Quick and dirty sequencing for mixed-model multi-level JIT systems.

We extend an intuitive level part usage measure to the multi-level case, and provide a practical yet powerful algorithm The measure assigns an ideal due-date to each unit of each part type of each level, and sums the squared deviation between these ideal due-dates and the actual completion times. The algorithm schedules the final products in earliest ideal due-date order. This algorithm entirely ignores the lower levels and is consequently extremely fast. Surprisingly, in addition to being many times faster than other algorithms, this quick and dirty algorithm performs very well with respect to both the new ideal due-date measure, and the multi-level goal-chasing measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]