Stochastic scheduling algorithm for multiple mould and die manufacturing projects and its simulation

Through the analysis of uncertainties of the durations, costs and rewards as well as the characteristic of frequent repairing in the mould and die manufacturing project, this paper proposed a stochastic evolution model of multiple mould and die manufacturing projects, which was on the basis of a discrete time Markov chain. With the aim to overcome the ‘curse of dimensionality’, an algorithm framework combining parallel simulation of heuristic policies with MATLAB Distributed Computing Server and Q-Learning was put forward to solve the above stochastic dynamic programming model. Finally, such an algorithm framework was explained with a sample example. The results show that the model is applicable and the algorithm is reliable and effective as well.