Simulation Modelling and Analysis of Due Date Assignment Methods and Scheduling Decision Rules in a Flexible Manufacturing System

This paper presents the salient details of a simulation-based study conducted to analyze the effect of due date assignment methods and scheduling decision rules on the performance of a flexible manufacturing system. A typical FMS is considered for investigation in the present study. Three endogenous due date setting methods and one exogenous method are examined in the present study. The scheduling rules considered for experimentation include processing time based rules and due date based rules in addition to the unbiased first-in-first-out rule. The performance measures evaluated in the present study are mean flow time, standard deviation of flow time, mean tardiness, standard deviation of tardiness, percentage of tardy jobs and average flow allowance. Analysis of the simulation results reveal that the dynamic due date setting methods provide better system performance.