Scheduling rules to minimize total tardiness in a parallel machine problem with setup and calendar constraints

摘要

Quality control lead times are one of most significant causes of loss of timein the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. This is partly due to theorganization of laboratories that feature parallel multipurpose machines forchromatographic analyses. The testing process requires long setup times andoperators are needed to launch the process. The various controls arenon-preemptive and are characterized by a release date, a due date andavailable routings. These quality processes lead to significant delays, and wetherefore evaluate the total tardiness criterion. Previous heuristics weredefined for the total tardiness criterion, parallel machines, and setup such asATC (Apparent Tardiness Cost) and ATCS (ATC with setups). We propose new rulesand a simulated annealing procedure in order to minimize total tardiness.