Scheduling three stage flowshop processes with no intermediate storage using novel matrix approach

Scheduling optimization normally aimed at minimizing makespan, leading to overall optimization of the production cost. This study focuses on determining the production sequence with minimum makespan for scheduling of a flowshop process using no intermediate storage (NIS) transfer policy. Unlike previous methods which uses mathematics considerably and lacks interactivity, the method introduces a simple approach based on matrix formulation to determine the makespan for all possible batch production sequences thus allowing simple screening to be done for selecting the optimal sequence. © 2008 Asian Network for Scientific Information.