IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/oropre/v48y2000i1p177-180.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Minimizing Cycle Time in a Blocking Flowshop

Author

Listed:
  • I.N. Kamal Abadi

    (Faculty of Engineering, University of Kordestan, Sanandaj, Islamic Republic of Iran)

  • Nicholas G. Hall

    (Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, 2100 Neil Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210)

  • Chelliah Sriskandarajah

    (School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, 2601 N. Floyd Road, Richardson, Texas 75083-0688)

Abstract

We consider a blocking (i.e., bufferless) flowshop that repetitively processes a minimal part set to minimize its cycle time, or equivalently to maximize its throughput rate. The best previous heuristic procedure solves instances with 9 machines and 25 jobs, with relative errors averaging about 3% but sometimes as much as 10%. The idea of deliberately slowing down the processing of operations (i.e., increasing their processing times) establishes a precise mathematical connection between this problem and a no-wait flowshop. 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 machines and 250 jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • I.N. Kamal Abadi & Nicholas G. Hall & Chelliah Sriskandarajah, 2000. "Minimizing Cycle Time in a Blocking Flowshop," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 48(1), pages 177-180, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:48:y:2000:i:1:p:177-180
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.48.1.177.12451
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.48.1.177.12451
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/opre.48.1.177.12451?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. S. Thomas McCormick & Michael L. Pinedo & Scott Shenker & Barry Wolf, 1989. "Sequencing in an Assembly Line with Blocking to Minimize Cycle Time," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 37(6), pages 925-935, December.
    2. Nicholas G. Hall & Chelliah Sriskandarajah, 1996. "A Survey of Machine Scheduling Problems with Blocking and No-Wait in Process," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 44(3), pages 510-525, June.
    3. Selcuk Karabati & Panagiotis Kouvelis, 1996. "Cyclic scheduling in flow lines: Modeling observations, effective heuristics and a cycle time minimization procedure," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 211-231, March.
    4. James B. Orlin, 1993. "A Faster Strongly Polynomial Minimum Cost Flow Algorithm," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 41(2), pages 338-350, April.
    5. Michel Gendreau & Alain Hertz & Gilbert Laporte, 1992. "New Insertion and Postoptimization Procedures for the Traveling Salesman Problem," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 40(6), pages 1086-1094, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mor Kaspi & Tal Raviv, 2013. "Service-Oriented Line Planning and Timetabling for Passenger Trains," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(3), pages 295-311, August.
    2. Bagchi, Tapan P. & Gupta, Jatinder N.D. & Sriskandarajah, Chelliah, 2006. "A review of TSP based approaches for flowshop scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(3), pages 816-854, March.
    3. Débora Ronconi, 2005. "A Branch-and-Bound Algorithm to Minimize the Makespan in a Flowshop with Blocking," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 53-65, September.
    4. Carlier, Jacques & Haouari, Mohamed & Kharbeche, Mohamed & Moukrim, Aziz, 2010. "An optimization-based heuristic for the robotic cell problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 202(3), pages 636-645, May.
    5. I N Kamal Abadi, 2007. "A new algorithm for minimizing makespan, C max, in blocking flow-shop problem through slowing down the operations," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(1), pages 134-140, January.
    6. Kalczynski, Pawel Jan & Kamburowski, Jerzy, 2007. "On no-wait and no-idle flow shops with makespan criterion," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 178(3), pages 677-685, May.
    7. Liu, Shi Qiang & Kozan, Erhan, 2009. "Scheduling a flow shop with combined buffer conditions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 371-380, February.
    8. Pan, Quan-Ke & Wang, Ling, 2012. "Effective heuristics for the blocking flowshop scheduling problem with makespan minimization," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 218-229, April.
    9. Ronconi, Débora P. & Henriques, Luís R.S., 2009. "Some heuristic algorithms for total tardiness minimization in a flowshop with blocking," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 272-281, April.
    10. Saied Samiedaluie & Vedat Verter, 2019. "The impact of specialization of hospitals on patient access to care; a queuing analysis with an application to a neurological hospital," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 709-726, December.
    11. Caraffa, Vince & Ianes, Stefano & P. Bagchi, Tapan & Sriskandarajah, Chelliah, 2001. "Minimizing makespan in a blocking flowshop using genetic algorithms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 101-115, March.
    12. Zhichao Feng & Milind Dawande & Ganesh Janakiraman, 2021. "On the Capacity of a Process with Batch Processing and Setup Times," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(11), pages 4273-4287, November.
    13. Nicholas G. Hall & Gilbert Laporte & Esaignani Selvarajah & Chelliah Sriskandarajah, 2005. "Scheduling and lot streaming in two‐machine open shops with no‐wait in process," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 261-275, April.
    14. Milind Dawande & Zhichao Feng & Ganesh Janakiraman, 2021. "On the Structure of Bottlenecks in Processes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3853-3870, June.
    15. Lee, Wen-Chiung & Shiau, Yau-Ren & Chen, Shiuan-Kang & Wu, Chin-Chia, 2010. "A two-machine flowshop scheduling problem with deteriorating jobs and blocking," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 188-197, March.
    16. Lin, Shih-Wei & Ying, Kuo-Ching, 2013. "Minimizing makespan in a blocking flowshop using a revised artificial immune system algorithm," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 383-389.
    17. Soukhal, A. & Martineau, P., 2005. "Resolution of a scheduling problem in a flowshop robotic cell," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 161(1), pages 62-72, February.
    18. Grabowski, Jøzef & Pempera, Jaroslaw, 2007. "The permutation flow shop problem with blocking. A tabu search approach," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 302-311, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lin, Shih-Wei & Ying, Kuo-Ching, 2013. "Minimizing makespan in a blocking flowshop using a revised artificial immune system algorithm," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 383-389.
    2. Bagchi, Tapan P. & Gupta, Jatinder N.D. & Sriskandarajah, Chelliah, 2006. "A review of TSP based approaches for flowshop scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(3), pages 816-854, March.
    3. Caraffa, Vince & Ianes, Stefano & P. Bagchi, Tapan & Sriskandarajah, Chelliah, 2001. "Minimizing makespan in a blocking flowshop using genetic algorithms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 101-115, March.
    4. Ronconi, Débora P. & Henriques, Luís R.S., 2009. "Some heuristic algorithms for total tardiness minimization in a flowshop with blocking," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 272-281, April.
    5. Smutnicki, Czeslaw & Pempera, Jaroslaw & Bocewicz, Grzegorz & Banaszak, Zbigniew, 2022. "Cyclic flow-shop scheduling with no-wait constraints and missing operations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(1), pages 39-49.
    6. Sawik, Tadeusz, 2004. "Loading and scheduling of a flexible assembly system by mixed integer programming," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(1), pages 1-19, April.
    7. Mascis, Alessandro & Pacciarelli, Dario, 2002. "Job-shop scheduling with blocking and no-wait constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 498-517, December.
    8. Grabowski, Jøzef & Pempera, Jaroslaw, 2007. "The permutation flow shop problem with blocking. A tabu search approach," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 302-311, June.
    9. Hichem Kamoun & Nicholas G. Hall & Chelliah Sriskandarajah, 1999. "Scheduling in Robotic Cells: Heuristics and Cell Design," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(6), pages 821-835, December.
    10. S. S. Panwalkar & Christos Koulamas, 2019. "The evolution of schematic representations of flow shop scheduling problems," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 379-391, August.
    11. Pan, Quan-Ke & Wang, Ling, 2012. "Effective heuristics for the blocking flowshop scheduling problem with makespan minimization," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 218-229, April.
    12. Ronconi, Debora P., 2004. "A note on constructive heuristics for the flowshop problem with blocking," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 39-48, January.
    13. Liu, Shi Qiang & Kozan, Erhan, 2009. "Scheduling a flow shop with combined buffer conditions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 371-380, February.
    14. Carlier, Jacques & Haouari, Mohamed & Kharbeche, Mohamed & Moukrim, Aziz, 2010. "An optimization-based heuristic for the robotic cell problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 202(3), pages 636-645, May.
    15. I N Kamal Abadi, 2007. "A new algorithm for minimizing makespan, C max, in blocking flow-shop problem through slowing down the operations," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(1), pages 134-140, January.
    16. Ribas, Imma & Companys, Ramon & Tort-Martorell, Xavier, 2011. "An iterated greedy algorithm for the flowshop scheduling problem with blocking," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 293-301, June.
    17. Débora Ronconi, 2005. "A Branch-and-Bound Algorithm to Minimize the Makespan in a Flowshop with Blocking," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 53-65, September.
    18. Marcelo Seido Nagano & Adriano Seiko Komesu & Hugo Hissashi Miyata, 2019. "An evolutionary clustering search for the total tardiness blocking flow shop problem," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 1843-1857, April.
    19. Groflin, Heinz & Klinkert, Andreas, 2007. "Feasible insertions in job shop scheduling, short cycles and stable sets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 177(2), pages 763-785, March.
    20. Smith, Kate & Palaniswami, M. & Krishnamoorthy, M., 1996. "Traditional heuristic versus Hopfield neural network approaches to a car sequencing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 300-316, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:48:y:2000:i:1:p:177-180. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.