• TWO STAGE SPECIALLY STRUCTURED FLOW SHOP SCHEDULING WITH JOB RESTRICTIONS TO MINIMIZE THE RENTAL COST

Abstract

One of the earliest results in flow shop scheduling is an algorithm given by Johnson’s (1954) for scheduling the jobs on two/three machines with minimum makespan. In most of the literature, the processing times of jobs are always considered to be random. But there are significant situations in which the processing time are not merely random but bear a well defined relationship to one another. The present paper is an attempt to develop a heuristic algorithm for two machines specially structured flow shop scheduling in which processing time of jobs are associated with their probabilities with some well defined structural relationship to one another including job block criteria. The objective
of the paper is to minimize the rental cost of the machines under a specified rental policy. A computer programme followed by a numerical illustration is given to substantiate the algorithm.