Scheduling parallel serial-batch processing machines with incompatible job families, sequence-dependent setup times and arbitrary sizes

The scheduling of (parallel) serial-batch processing machines is a task arising in many industrial sectors. In the metal-processing industry for instance, cutting operations are necessary to fabricate varying metal pieces out large base slides. Here, (cutting) jobs have individual, arbitrary slide capacity requirements (sizes), individual times and due dates, specific material (i.e. each job belongs one family, whereby different families cannot be processed within same batch thus incompatible). addition, switching slides dependent adjustments machine parameters cause sequence-dependent setup times. All these conditions need considered while minimising total weighted tardiness. For solving problem, mixed-integer program several tailor-made construction heuristics (enhanced by local search mechanisms) presented. experimental results show that problem instances with up five 60 can tackled using optimisation model. experiments on small (with 400 jobs) purposefully used limitation improves solution quality remarkably. Applying best heuristic data two real-world application cases shows its huge potential increase delivery reliability.