Decision Sciences Journal
Volume 32, Number 2
Spring 2001
Optimal Solutions for the Single Batch, Flow Shop, Lot-streaming
Problem with Equal Sublots
Adar A. Kalir and Subhash C. Sarin
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, email:
sarins@vt.edu
Abstract. Lot streaming is the process of splitting
a production lot into sublots and then scheduling the sublots
in overlapping fashion on the machines in order to improve the
performance of the production system. Implementation of this
concept arises in several batch production environments. These
include, among others, printed circuit board assembly and semiconductor
fabrication. There are several limitations in the lot-streaming
models available in the literature which affect their usefulness
in reality. In this paper, we consider the single batch, flow
shop, lot-streaming problem but relax several of these limitations.
The main contribution of this paper is to provide the production
manager with a way of splitting a lot in order to optimize performance
under various measures of performance and setup time considerations.
In addition, the insight of the proposed procedure can be used
to tackle more general versions of the problem considered.
Subject Areas: Lot Sizing, Mathematical Programming,
and Optimization. |