Heuristic algorithms for scheduling a heat-treatment furnace of steel-casting foundry manufacturing
by M. Ramasubramaniam; M. Mathirajan
International Journal of Advanced Operations Management (IJAOM), Vol. 3, No. 3/4, 2011

Abstract: This paper addresses a new research problem of minimising makespan (C_max) on a batch processor (BP) with single job family (SJF), non-identical job sizes (NIJS), non-identical job dimensions (NIJD) and non-agreeable release times and due dates (NARD). We were led to this problem through a real-world application involving the scheduling of heat-treatment operations of steel casting foundry. The scheduling of furnace for heat-treatment of castings is of considerable interest as a large proportion of the total production time is the processing times of these operations. Due to the computational difficulty of the research problem, a few heuristic algorithms are proposed. In order to evaluate the solution quality of the proposed heuristic algorithms, a lower bound procedure is proposed. A series of computational experiments are conducted for absolute evaluation of heuristic algorithms in comparison with lower bound for large scale problems. This understanding facilitates the selection of the best algorithm under specific conditions for the research problem.

Online publication date: Tue, 30-Sep-2014

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Advanced Operations Management (IJAOM):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com