Cluster analysis to minimize sequence dependent changeover times

Cluster analysis is applied to reduce sequence dependent changeover times among products in a manufacturing setting. A product grouping procedure which aggregates like products with similar production and setup requirements forms the basis of a planning system designed to perform short-term scheduling at a particular manufacturing facility. Integration of the grouping technique served to implicitly minimize product changeover times and resulted in significantly improved schedules. When tested on randomly generated job sequencing problems, this grouping procedure generated good, near optimal solutions.