An investigation of dynamic group scheduling heuristics in a job shop manufacturing cell

The objective of this study is to develop dynamic scheduling heuristics for cellular manufacturing environments (group scheduling or family heuristics) and compare them with existing family heuristics under various shop floor conditions. The proposed family heuristics stress good due date performance while reducing overall set-up time. Computer simulation is used to test three queue selection rules in conjunction with three dispatching rules under eight experimental conditions in a job shop cell. The results indicate that several of the proposed heuristics substantially improve the performance of the cell over the best previously suggested family heuristic under all experimental conditions.