A heuristic rescheduling algorithm for computer-based production scheduling systems

Generation of new production schedules in response to changes that take place on a factory shop-floor is a common requirement in today’s complex and flexible manufacturing environment. The current approaches use either a regeneration rescheduling method, which results in unsatisfactory response times or methods that need too much manual intervention for identifying the operations to be changed. The authors propose a new rescheduling algorithm to address these problems. The present algorithm is based on the construction of a scheduling binary tree and a net change concept adopted from MRP system. It revises schedules by rescheduling only those operations that need to be revised. The present algorithm can be embedded in existing simulation-based scheduling systems or electronic Gantt chart approaches to improve their effectiveness.