TIME-BASED AND COST-BASED PRIORITIES FOR JOB-SHOP SCHEDULING

Competitively, cost- and time-based scheduling should provide a firm w ith a powerful market advantage. The cost- and time-based priority sch eduling concept is driven by profit maximization and quick response in a competitive market. The literature on shop scheduling contains nume rous studies reporting on the use of dispatching rules that are based only on the time criterion. Alternatively there have been only a few p ublished articles that specifically consider a composite of cost and t ime. Aggarwal and McCarl, and Scudder and Hoffmann have investigated t he use of cost and time information for determining the job priority i n random job shops. One result of this study is a reconciliation of th e differences between the Aggarwal and McCarl and the Scudder and Hoff mann study. Moreover, a simplistic priority rule based on profit margi n and due dates is introduced and tested. The results reported in this research are an attempt to reconcile the issue of time-based versus c ost-based priority rule performance.