Optimal duedateassignmentandresourceallocationinagrouptechnology schedulingenvironment

We studyasinglemachineschedulingprobleminwhichtheschedulerdeterminesduedatesfor differentjobsinagrouptechnologyenvironment.Ingrouptechnology(GT)environment,apartitionof the jobsintogroups(families)isgivenandjobsofthesamefamilyarerequiredtobeprocessed consecutively.Thepartitionofthejobsintofamiliesisdoneinordertoachieveefficiencyofhigh- volume productionbyexploitingsimilaritiesofdifferentproductsandactivitiesintheirproduction. Since customersofsimilarjobsmayexpectthatalljobswithinthesamegroupwillbeassignedwiththe same duedate,wesuggestanoriginalduedateassignmentmethodinwhichalljobswithinafamilyare restrictedtobeassignedthesameduedate,whileeachfamilycanbeassignedaduedatewithoutany restriction.Theproposedmethodprovidesanextensionoftwoearliermethodsthatappearinthe literature,onewhichincludesasinglefamilyandtheotherinwhichthenumberoffamiliesisidentical to thenumberofjobs.Ourobjectiveistofindthejobscheduleandtheduedateforeachgroupthat minimizesanobjectivefunctionwhichincludesearliness,tardinessandduedateassignmentpenalties. We alsoextendtheanalysistoaddressthecaseinwhichthejobprocessingtimesareresource dependent.Forthiscaseweincludethetotalweightedresourceconsumptionandthemakespan penaltiestotheobjectivefunction.