Job Sequencing & WIP level determination in a cyclic CONWIP Flowshop with Blocking

A CONWIP (Constant Work-In-Progress) system is basically a hybrid system with a PUSH-PULL interface at the first machine in the line. This research addresses the most general case of a cyclic CONWIP system by incorporating two additional constraints over earlier studies namely; stochastic processing times and limited intermediate storage. One of the main issues in the design of a CONWIP system is the WIP level 'M', to be maintained. This research proposes an iterative procedure to determine this optimal level. The second main issue is the optimization of the line by determining an appropriate job sequence. This research assumes a 'permutational' scheduling policy and proposes an iterative approach to find the best sequence. The approach utilizes a controlled enumerative approach called the Fast Insertion Heuristic (FIH) coupled with a method to appraise the quality of every enumeration at each iteration. This is done by using a modified version of the Floyd's algorithm, to determine the cycle time (or Flow time) of a partial/full solution. The performance measures considered are the Flow time and the Interdeparture time (inverse of throughput). Finally, both the methods suggested for the two subproblems, are tested through computer implementations to reveal their proficiency.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2000

Author dc:creator

• Palekar, Nipun Pushpasheel

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Sarin, Subhash C.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Joseph, Tim W.
• Koelling, C. Patrick

• Serial Manufacturing System
• Queuing theory applied to Flow shop with blocking
• Flow Shop Scheduling
• CONWIP
• Mean Value Analysis
• Flow shop with blocking
• Blocking
• Sequencing and Scheduling
• Fast Insertion Heuristic
• Scheduling Epochs

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-09102000-18540041

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/34997