Minimizing the makespan of a group scheduling problem: A new heuristic

A group scheduling problem focuses on determining the sequence or order in which the jobs (parts) assigned to a cell should be processed in order to either maximize or minimize some measure of effectiveness. In this paper a new heuristic algorithm has been developed and presented for minimizing the makespan criterion of a group scheduling problem. The underlying premise for the new algorithm is based on the fact that jobs with higher mean total processing time should be given a higher priority in generating partial schedules that eventually lead to determining a complete schedule for the problem. The steps associated with the heuristic have been applied to a real world application chosen from published literature. The complete schedule determind by the new heuristic resulted in a smaller makespan than the makespan determined by two previously documented heuristics. Additionally, an extensive statistical analysis has been carried out to compare the performances of the three heuristics based on a randomized complete block design. The results obtained show a superior performance by the new heuristic over the two previous heuristics on all problem sizes (small, medium, and large) attempted.