Giffler and Thompson’s algorithm for job shop scheduling is still good for flexible manufacturing systems

In this paper it is shown, through computational results, that a schedule generation algorithm originally designed for the traditional job shop model can still provide good results, in terms of CPU time and solution accuracy, when applied to the flexible manufacturing system (FMS) model. For this, two algorithms are used, for the job shop and the FMS, that generate all active schedules. Both algorithms are improved, by adding to them a branch-and-bound approach, and their behaviour is compared.