Reactive scheduling of a semiconductor testing facility

The authors describe an approach to scheduling complex job shops such as semiconductor testing operations which uses the global shop-floor information available from computerized Factory Control Systems. The approach combines a decomposition approach for the static problem with an EDR approach to handling the dynamic events in the system. Preliminary experiments show that these rescheduling policies have performance comparable to myopic dispatching rules, and the implementation of better subproblem solution methods in the decomposition should lead to substantial further improvements