Scheduling jobs on identical parallel machines with unequal future ready time and sequence dependent setup: An experimental study

This paper studies the performances of Apparent Tardiness Cost based (ATC‐based) dispatching rules in minimizing the total weighted tardiness on identical parallel machines with unequal future ready time and sequence dependent setup. In experiments, the sequence dependent setup is divided into two categories: the continuous sequence dependent setup (s ij ,con) and the separable sequence dependent setup (s ij ,sep). The former needs the presence of parts to setup on the machine, while the latter does not need it and allows machine to be idle between the setup and the processing of the part. Experiments show that Modified Apparent Tardiness Cost with Setup and Ready time (MATCSR) and Apparent Tardiness Cost with Separable Setup and Ready time (ATCSSR) outperform other existing ATC‐based rules in reducing the total weighted tardiness for problems (Pm|r j ,s ij ,con|Σw j T j and Pm|r j ,s ij ,sep|Σw j T j ) where the sequence dependent setups are continuous and separable, respectively.