MAKESPAN DISTRIBUTIONS IN FLOW-SHOP SCHEDULING

Concerns scheduling five jobs through a flow shop with five machines. The distribution bf makespans and the distribution of the optimal make spans was obtained by complete enumeration of all the schedules. The e ffect of the processing times on these distributions was investigated. Three priority rules were evaluated as to their performance on minimi zing the makespan. These rules were the ''greatest total processing ti me'' first rule, the ''least total processing time'' first rule and a ''RANDOM'' assignment rule. Statistical tests were used to evaluate th e efficacy of the rules.