Learning Curve Consideration in Makespan Computation Using Artificial Neural Network Approach

This paper presents an alternative method using artificial neural network (ANN) to develop a scheduling scheme which is used to determine the makespan or cycle time of a group of jobs going through a series of stages or workstations. The common conventional method uses mathematical programming techniques and presented in Gantt charts forms. The contribution of this paper is in three fold. Firstly, the learning curve which is characterized by a coefficient is considered in the computation work. Secondly, this work is limited to small number of jobs and is useful for project based pilot runs which involve learning. Lastly, the scheduling scheme is developed in ANN as an alternate method. Extensive and successful training using the input and output vector pairs were done to establish the proposed method. Comparison was done for the tested outputs and results produced seem reliable.