Decomposition methods for reentrant flow shops with sequence-dependent setup times

We consider the problem of scheduling a reentrant flow shop with sequence-dependent setup times to minimize maximum lateness. We develop a series of decomposition methods (DMs) exploring the importance of components such as subproblem solution method, bottleneck identification and reoptimization method on the solution time/quality tradeoff. Based on these results, we propose an enhanced DM which gives promising results for these difficult scheduling problems. Our results also yield interesting insights into the strengths and limitations of DMs.