Scheduling a two-machine flowshop with travel times to minimize maximum lateness

As fully automated manufacturing becomes a realization, the problem of scheduling jobs to meet customer due dates come to the forefront. In this paper, possible sequencing methods are generated for an automated two-machine flowshop with non-negligible transportation times and blocking of the second machine. Two heuristics are developed to sequence a set of jobs with the objective of minimizing maximum lateness. The cases of scheduling the flowshop when it starts in a null state and a busy state are both investigated.