Bilevel programming applied to the flow shop scheduling problem

A two level branch and bound algorithm is developed to solve an altered form of the standard flow-shop scheduling problem modeled as a bilevel programming problem. The flow-shop scheduling problem considered here differs from the standard problem in that operators are assigned to the machines and each operator has a different time table for the jobs on each machine. The shop owner is considered the top planner and assigns the operators to the machines in order to minimize the total fiowtime while the customer is the bottom planner and decides on a job schedule in order to minimize the makespan.