US-Tunisia Cooperative Research: Scheduling with Due Dates

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0116655BulfinDescription: This project supports a cooperative research project between Dr. Robert Bulfin, Department of Industrial Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama and Dr. Rym M'Hallah, Department of Quantitative Methods, Institute Superior de Gestion de Sousse, Sousse, Tunisia. The focus of the research will be on using surrogate relaxation approaches to solve large scale scheduling problems with due dates. The two scientists have already modeled the weighted number of tardy jobs for single and parallel machine systems as integer programs, induced knapsack structure for surrogate bounds, and developed heuristic and exact algorithms to solve the resulting problems. This limited work has produced algorithms capable of solving the largest problem instances to date in short computer time. The present research extends these ideas to other performance measures (tardiness, number of tardy jobs and their weighted counterparts) and various machine environments (single, parallel and flow shop problems). Specifically the work will center on developing heuristic and exact algorithms to solve the single and parallel machine tardiness scheduling problems, and flow shop number of tardy jobs scheduling problems, and the flow shop number of tardy jobs scheduling problem.Scope: Dr. Bulfin's research interests are on solving real world applications in production control and scheduling. Dr. M'Hallah has been working on developing computer based solutions for the industrial sector, especially the chemical and garment industries in Tunisia. She will make the results of this research available to the Tunisian garment industry and use them in a scheduling module as part of a computer-aided management software system.