Title: A new mathematical model for scheduling flexible flow shop problem with learning and forgetting effects of workers

Authors: Hany Seidgar; Mehdi Abedi; Sahar Tadayoni Rad

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Mazandaran University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 734, Babol, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Mazandaran University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 734, Babol, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: This paper presents a new mathematical model for scheduling flexible flow shop problem with sequence dependent setup times in which learning and forgetting effects of workers are considered in setup times. Manpower have significant rule for doing setup on machines and their skill will be increased when they do similar jobs and it is possible for them to prepare machines to process jobs with higher speed (learning effect). On other hand, when workers do a number of new jobs on different machines they will forget how to setup the old machines (forgetting effect). One numerical example is solved by the Lingo software to illustrate the results obtained by the incorporated features.

Keywords: flowshop scheduling; flexible flowshops; learning effects; forgetting effects; manpower; mathematical modelling; sequence dependent setup times.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2015.072733

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2015 Vol.21 No.4, pp.534 - 549

Received: 13 Nov 2013
Accepted: 23 Mar 2014
Published online: 28 Oct 2015 *

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