Minimizing cycle time in a blocking flowshop

We consider a blocking (i.e., bufferless) flowshop that repetitively proces ses a minimal part set to minimize its cycle time, or equivalently to maxim ize its throughput rate. The best previous heuristic procedure solves insta nces with 9 machines and 25 jobs, with relative errors averaging about 3% b ut sometimes as much as 10%. The idea of deliberately slowing down the proc essing of operations (i.e., increasing their processing times) establishes a precise mathematical connection between this problem and a no-wait flowsh op. This enables a very effective heuristic for the no-wait flowshop to be adapted as a heuristic for the blocking flowshop. Our computational results show relative errors that average less than 2% for instances with 20 machi nes and 250 jobs.