Benchmark Production Scheduling Problems for Job Shops with InteractiveConstraints

摘要

United States Air Force (USAF) depots have expressed interest in utilizingDISASTER production scheduling software to schedule their maintenance operations. DISASTER attempts to increase system throughput by building effective schedules for system, constraint resources. However, when a system contains multiple, interactive constraints, DISASTER builds the constraint schedules one at a time. Since each successive schedule must adhere to timing restrictions imposed by previous constraint schedules, the quality of the schedules produced by DISASTER is dependent upon the sequence in which the constraints are scheduled. This thesis first developed a set of benchmark problems which provide a diversity of scheduling scenarios. These benchmark problems were then used to determine the relationship between the constraint scheduling sequence and the quality of the schedules DISASTER produced. The researchers found that the sequence in which the constraints were scheduled has an effect on the due date performance of the schedules. This knowledge has the potential to produce substantial improvements in the quality of USAF depots' schedules. In addition, the problems developed serve as a benchmark for future research which compares alternative scheduling algorithms to DISASTER. Scheduling, Theory of constraints, Drum-buffer-rope.