Scheduling with Sequencing Flexibility*
研究了制造系统中排序灵活性对调度规则性能的影响，发现即使低水平的灵活性也能显著改善平均流程时间等指标，且在高灵活性下某些非参数规则优于最短处理时间规则。
ABSTRACT This study examines the effects of sequencing flexibility on the performance of rules used to schedule operations in manufacturing systems. The findings show that taking advantage of even low levels of sequencing flexibility in the set of operations required to do a job results in substantial improvement in the performance of scheduling rules with respect to mean flowtime. Differences in the mean flowtime measure for various rules also diminish significantly with increasing sequencing flexibility. Performance improvements additionally result for such due‐date related performance measures as mean tardiness and the proportion of jobs tardy. At high levels of sequencing flexibility, some nonparametric scheduling rules outperform the shortest processing time rule in terms of the mean flowtime criterion. Rules based on job due dates also outperform rules based on operation milestones in terms of tardiness related criteria at high levels of sequencing flexibility. The implications of these findings for the design of manufacturing systems and product design are noted.