A Computer-Aided System for Job-Shop Flow Time and Due-Date Prediction

One of the key challenges confronting a production system is the accurate prediction of flow time (completion time) and due date of jobs coming into the job-shop. The inaccuracy in the determination of flow time and due date could lead to problems of dead line misses, high holding cost for waiting jobs and/or completed jobs, technical and cost inefficiency; and customer dissatisfaction, among others. In this paper, a Computer-Aided System which is based on an empirical model for predicting job-shop flow time and due-date was developed. The Computer-Aided System makes use of historical production data and other peculiar in-house factors of an organization. The Computer-Aided System was tested with real life job-shop data in order to test its efficiency and it was found to be efficient in predicting flow time and due date of jobs.