Minimizing thenumberoftardyjobsintheflowshopproblemwithoperationand resource flexibility

In thispaper,weproposeareformulationfortheflowshopproblembasedontheconceptofoperation to workstationflexibility.Whileweassumeafixedsequenceofoperationsinthereformulation,the “location” ofeachoperationwithintheflowisnotfixed.Theproposedflowshopproblemisimportant because theeffectiveuseofthisflexibilitycanleadtosignificantchangesinproductionperformance. Solving theproposedprobleminvolvestwosub-problems:assignmentofoperationstoworkstationsand sequencing ofthejobs.Wepresentalowerboundprocedureandefficientsolutionapproachestosolve each sub-problem.Furthermore,animprovementmethodbasedonneighborhoodsearchandsimulated annealing isimplemented.Asetofexperimentsisanalyzedunderdifferentcombinationsoftheproposed heuristics achievinghighqualityresults.Theseexperimentsdemonstratethattheheuristicfactorisof significance fortheproblem.