Satisfying due-dates in large multi-factory supply chains

Thoney K., Hodgson T., King R., Taner M. R., Wilson A.

IIE TRANSACTIONS, vol.34, no.9, pp.803-811, 2002 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 34 Issue: 9
  • Publication Date: 2002
  • Doi Number: 10.1023/a:1015500822105
  • Journal Name: IIE TRANSACTIONS
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED)
  • Page Numbers: pp.803-811
  • TED University Affiliated: No

Abstract

A procedure is developed for the simultaneous scheduling of multi-factory supply chains, including inter-factory transportation. A job-shop scheduling procedure, known to provide near-optimal solutions to industrial-sized problems, is enhanced to include transportation elements in the fundamental model. In order to demonstrate the quality of the solutions, a lower bound calculation is compared to the procedure's solutions on a number of large-scale test problems. The lower bound is an enhancement of the classic lower bound calculation for the N-job, M-machine job shop. The computational effort in scheduling is linear in the size of the problem, and high quality solutions to large-scale problems can be obtained in seconds.