New Publication in International Journal of Production Research: Multi-Objective Distributed Flow Shop Scheduling with Inter-Factory Transportation and Variable Production Speed

We are pleased to announce a new publication by Lydia Hilarius, Udo Buscher, and Tristan Becker titled “Multi-objective distributed flow shop scheduling with inter-factory transportation and variable production speed” in the International Journal of Production Research.

In a globally integrated economy, production is frequently distributed across multiple factories or production lines. Building upon the traditional distributed flow shop scheduling problem, this study introduces two practical flexibility mechanisms: transporting semi-finished products between factories to balance capacity utilization and increasing production speed to mitigate bottlenecks. To generate customer-oriented schedules, the authors minimize total job tardiness. In a multi-objective approach, they analyze the trade-offs between meeting due dates and incurring additional costs to identify optimal compromise solutions.

To efficiently solve this complex problem, the authors developed a tailored algorithm that significantly outperforms standard mathematical approaches in extensive computational experiments. Their findings demonstrate the benefits of both flexibility mechanisms. Additionally, combining them yields strong synergies: costly inter-factory transports and production speed increases are deployed when deadlines are at risk.

Read more about our algorithms and findings: Link