An Investigation of Scheduling Policies in a Dual‐Constrained Manufacturing Cell*
研究了机器和劳动力双重约束下的制造单元调度问题，开发了11种决策规则并在16种实验条件下测试，发现到达时间分布和单元负载对性能影响最大，而设置时间和转移时间比率影响规则排名。
ABSTRACT In previous group scheduling studies, labor has essentially been ignored by assuming that enough labor is assigned to each machine in the cell. In reality, however, management usually does not have the resources to employ a laborer at each machine in the cell (i.e., machines need to share labor). Both labor scheduling and group scheduling heuristics need to be administered to manage the cell effectively. This study develops and examines scheduling procedures for a dual‐constrained (i.e., machine and labor) manufacturing cell. Eleven decision rules are developed and tested under 16 different experimental conditions. The experimental factors used are interarrival time distribution, cell load, setup‐to‐run‐time ratio, and transfer‐to‐run‐time ratio. Results show that interarrival time distribution and cell load have the greatest impact on the performance of the cell. This suggests that effective production planning aimed at reducing job arrival variation and leveling the cell load can substantially improve cell performance. Among the experimental factors, setup and transfer‐to‐run‐time ratio factors had the strongest influence on the rankings of the decision rules. These rankings were fairly robust across all experimental conditions and performance measures. The results also indicated that the inclusion of labor as a contraint in the cell had a significant impact on the performance of several group scheduling heuristics. Finally, it was shown that the best performing decision rules consider both transfer time and subfamily setup times.