A decision analysis method for a tardy work in progress from the production cost point of view

In a job shop production system, the delay of a work in progress may influence its successive processes and therefore possibly postpone the finishing time of the related product. As the delayed operations may require a common group of equipment and hence may affect one another, it would be a tedious task to find all of the affected operations in order to make a decision which will reduce the loss due to this tardy operation. A method which tries to find the minimum cost required to compensate a tardy operation in terms of three criteria is proposed. By using a TSSO diagram, this systematic method can analyse the influence on all of the subsequent operations of a tardy task and obtain an appropriate strategy which minimizes expense.