Scheduling under hybrid mode with additive manufacturing

As an advanced technology, additive manufacturing (AM) has many advantages over traditional manufacturing technology such as reducing lead time and reshaping supply chain structures from centralized to decentralized. In this paper, a new scheduling model with both traditional machines and AM machines is studied. In this model jobs can be processed by either a traditional machine in the nearby plant or an AM machine in the house of the customer, and those processed in the traditional machine need to be delivered back to customers in batches. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the potential impact of additive manufacturing on the production scheduling. Two objective functions are discussed, which include total completion time and the extra cost, as well as the maximum lateness and the extra cost. We analyze their complexity and solve them by means of dynamic programming algorithms, which may provide reference for further production decisions.