An Horizontal Approach to Batch Scheduling - Using the Simultaneous Manufacturing Philosophy

This paper is concerned with Batch Scheduling in job-shop like manufacturing systems. The Horizontal Scheduling approach is used, assuming that full scheduling of a simple or complex job, based on the job routing network of operations, from the first operation to the last, is performed before another job is considered for scheduling, having in consideration existing manufacturing processors and their availability. We follow this approach because we aim at compressing job flow time to a minimum as a strategy to meeting job due dates. To further enhance this objective the idea behind Simultaneous Manufacturing through, the widespread use of batch overlapping with Job Scheduling Patterns, which proved particularly effective in reducing job throughput time, maintaining operating simplicity and requiring reduced coordination