Criteria selection and analysis for single machine dynamic on-line scheduling with multiple objectives and sequence-dependent setups

Fertile opportunities exist for research involving dynamic and stochastic scheduling with multiple conflicting objectives and sequence-dependent setups as little has been reported in the literature to date. This research focuses on understanding and identifying the criteria that could be combined into a single rule using the linear weighted aggregation approach to consider the contradicting needs of cycle time and delivery accuracy. Eight dispatching criteria are compared and evaluated using discrete event simulation. In most studies, the basic concept is to combine different dispatching criterion that performs the best in each objective into a single rule but this may be insufficient. Simulation results show that it is necessary to take into account not only the criterion's strength in optimizing a performance objective but also the degree of trade-off it has on the other conflicting performance objectives of interest. A correlation analysis of the objectives used is also presented. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.