Simulation-based online scheduling in a make-to-order job shop

Abstract

Scheduling is a core activity in the manufacturing business. It assists with the efficient and effective utilisation of capital-intensive resources and increased throughput, thus increasing profitability. Simulation is appealing in manufacturing, as it can realistically imitate dynamic, stochastic processes while being descriptive in predicting the future process. We combined simulation and scheduling and developed an online simulation-based scheduler for manufacturing orders in a South African make-to-order job shop enterprise. There are frequent changes in this type of environment, including random arrivals of orders with stochastic processing times. A simulation-based scheduler is applicable in this myopic, stochastic environment, and we demonstrate its use under these conditions.