A Solution to a Special Class of Flow Shop Scheduling Problems

Abstract

This paper considers the most general type of “network” flow shop in which jobs pass through several stages, each of which is composed on one or more identical processors. Jobs are processed on any one of the processors at each stage in ascending order of stage numbers and the objective is minimization of makespan. The class of shops considered is characterized by prohibited in-process inventory and slightly restricted job ordering per processor. Originally designed for the scheduling of nylon polymerization, the algorithms developed in the paper have numerous applications, especially in the chemical processes and petrochemical production areas.