JUST-IN-TIME PRODUCTION OF LARGE ASSEMBLIES

The problem of scheduling operations in a manufacturing facility that produces large assemblies is considered. Given the due dates of the en d items, the objective is to determine a schedule that minimizes the c umulative production lead time. The lot sizes of the end items are con sidered known and 'just-in-time' (JIT) production is assumed. The sche duling problem within such an environment has been formulated and is N P-hard. Its similarities to and differences from the well studied reso urce-constrained project scheduling problem have been established. An efficient heuristic is developed that uses the precedence network of o perations to prioritize execution of those operations that belong to a dynamically computed critical path. The effectiveness of the proposed heuristic is assessed in terms of cumulative lead-time and work-in-pr ocess inventory (WIP) costs.