Minimizing makespan in a two-stage system with flowshop and open shop

This paper studies two models of two-stage processing with flowshop at the first stage followed by open shop at the second stage. The first model involves multiple machines at the first stage and two machines at the second stage, and the other involves multiple machines at both stages. In both models, the objective is to minimize the makespan. This problem is NP-complete, for which an efficient heuristic solution algorithm is constructed and its worst-case performance guarantee is analyzed for both models. An integer programming model and a branch and bound algorithm are proposed for model 1 and a lower bound is developed for model 2 as benchmarks for the heuristic algorithms. Computational experiences show that the heuristic algorithms consistently generate good schedule and the branch and bound algorithm is much more efficient than the integer-programming model.