R. Kolisch et K. Hess, Efficient methods for scheduling make-to-order assemblies under resource, assembly area and part availability constraints, INT J PROD, 38(1), 2000, pp. 207-228
We consider the problem of scheduling multiple, large-scale, make-to-order
assemblies under resource, assembly area, and part availability constraints
. Such problems typically occur in the assembly of high-volume, discrete ma
ke-to-order products. Based on a list scheduling procedure proposed by Koli
sch in 1999 we introduce three efficient heuristic solution methods. Namely
, a biased random sampling method and two tabu search-based large-step opti
mization methods. The two latter methods differ in the employed neighbourho
od. The first one uses a simple API-neighbourhood while the second one uses
a more elaborated so-called 'critical neighbourhood' which makes use of pr
oblem insight. All three procedures are assessed on a systematically genera
ted set of test instances. The results indicate that especially the large-s
tep optimization method with the critical neighbourhood gives very good res
ults which are significant better than simple single-pass list scheduling p
rocedures.