The Coordinated Scheduling Support System of Production and Delivery

Problem statement: Traditional scheduling models which only address the sequence of jobs to be processed at the production stage under some criteria are no longer suitable and should be extended to cope with the distribution stage after production. In a rapidly changing environment, competition among enterprises has a tendency to turn towards competing between supply chain systems instead of competing between individual companies. Emphasizing on the coordination and the integration among various members of a supply chain has become one of the vital strategies for the modern manufacturers to gain competitive advantages. Approach: This research focuses mainly on a class of two-stage scheduling problem, in which jobs need to be delivered to customers by vehicles after the completion of their respective production. It is assumed that the transportation time of a vehicle is constant and jobs to be delivered occupy different physical spaces. Results: The result of this research is to show the scheduling problem with the objective of minimizing total completion time is intractable and to develop a heuristic by incorporating properties inherited in an the optimal schedule. In addition, we take a Decision Support System (DSS) view to construct a Scheduling Support System (SSS) for solving the scheduling problem with delivery coordination. Conclusion/Recommendations: The scheduling support system with an additional problem management subsystem can provide more useful information for users when the management makes a strategic decision than traditional scheduling methods can. It can give firms a competitive advantage on the global competitive market.