Transfer batch scheduling for a two-stage flowshop with identical parallel machines at each stage

This paper considers the transfer batch scheduling problem for a two-stage flowshop with identical parallel machines at each stage, Two cases of separable and inseparable setup times and processing times are examined, A scheduling rule similar to Johnson's rule is suggested to minimize makespan, The scheduling method developed in this paper subsumes many existing methods for two-stage flowshop makespan minimization. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the scheduling method, (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.