| Scheduling focuses at the daily use of manufacturing resources. It involves decisions on the sequencing and distribution of operations over the resources. A distinction is to be made in on-line and off-line scheduling. Off-line scheduling assumes the building of a schedule on a regular basis, e.g., daily or weekly. The creation of this schedule is not affected by internal or external disturbances, e.g. machine breakdowns, hot jobs etc. Alternatively, on-line scheduling allows for an update of the schedule based on shop status. We study off-line scheduling for discrete and process industries and on-line scheduling of batch operations, such as ovens found in both aircraft industry and semiconductor manufacturing and automated transportation systems. |
