Scheduling in hybrid flow shops with lot streaming

Scheduling is one of the most relevant planning tasks in operations management and describes the sequencing of jobs on machines. In practice, so-called hybrid flow shops (HFS) are often found, i.e., production lines in which several machines are available in the individual production stages. This means that, in addition to the sequence of the jobs, the jobs must also be assigned to the individual machines. Using lot streaming, i.e., the early transfer of sublots to subsequent production stages, can increase efficiency. However, quantifying the benefits of lot streaming is still necessary and tackled in this project. Because traditional planning approaches are usually unable to solve the complexity of this planning task, solution algorithms for this problem will be developed and evaluated. Problem properties are exploited to improve the approaches further. The developed algorithms can enable higher productivity and efficiency in industrial production in the future.