A novel mathematical model for a hybrid flow shop scheduling problem under buffer and resource limitations-A case study

Scheduling problems play a big role in manufacturing and planning the production for increasing the production efficiency and assigning the resources to operations. Furthermore, in many manufacturing systems there is a physical space between stages that called intermediate buffers. In this study, a model is proposed for minimizing the makespan of a hybrid flow shop scheduling problem with intermediate buffers and resource constraints. These constraints exist in almost every realistic manufacturing system and have an imperative impact on improving the production cost, productivity, and sustainability. In this study, a hybrid algorithm based on genetic algorithm and variable neighborhood search was used, which in tuned with Taguchi’s method helped in solving the proposed model for a tire manufacturing company. The results show that the proposed mathematical model has a high ability for scheduling problems with resource and intermediate buffer constraints and is solvable by the hybrid genetic algorithm.