A computational analysis of balanced just-in-time optimization algorithms

The balanced schedule problem in mixed-model, JIT manufacturing is examined. Solving this problem is the cornerstone of production in any JIT facility. Although very efficient procedures have been demonstrated for the single-level problems, nobody has examined the nature of the solutions that these procedures actually produce. In this paper, the first large scale computational study is undertaken to examine these optimization algorithms. Furthermore, several open questions and conjectures have developed in the past few years. These open questions are formulated as propositions and answered by means of the extensive computational testing. The answers to these propositions are conclusive and, in some cases, quite unexpected. While it had appeared that most of the single-level problems had been efficiently solved, this study points to several interesting questions requiring additional study.