A heuristic solution concept for a generalised machine sequencing problem with an application to radiator manufacturing

The job shop scheduling problem has received considerable attention from production and operations researchers since the early 1950s. However, scheduling practice in manufacturing systems up to now has tended to ignore the wealth of methods, techniques and results of scheduling theory. Relatively few articles have reported on successful applications of this theory. This paper considers a real problem in practice, namely a generalized job shop scheduling problem for a supplier for the automotive industry, which can be seen as typical for this line of business. The problem is described by a mixed integer programming model. Because an exact solution concept is not suited for the practical problem (the dimension of the real problem is too large) an approximative search-based algorithm is developed. Simulation results that show the quality level of the approximative scheme are reported.