SCHEDULING WITH PRIORITY DISPATCHING RULES AND DRUM-BUFFER-ROPE IN A RECOVERABLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

The development of environmentally conscious manufacturing systems has become of increasing concern. A recoverable manufacturing system is s uch a system and seeks to minimize waste through a variety of strategi es, including remanufacturing. However, despite the growth in this typ e of systems, there are few established scheduling systems reported in the literature. Drum-buffer-rope has been shown to be successful in p lanning, scheduling and controlling remanufacturing operations, but to date there have been no formal examinations of what priority dispatch ing rules should be used at non-constraint work centers to best suppor t drum-buffer-rope. This study examines a number of priority dispatchi ng rules in combination with drum-buffer-rope under a variety of utili zation levels, via a simulation model of an actual remanufacturing fac ility. The findings indicate that simple priority dispatching rules, s uch as first-in, first-out rule or earliest due-date, work best to sup port drum-buffer-rope, but that other factors must be considered when using drum-buffer-rope for scheduling in a remanufacturing environment with changing demand rates.