A heuristic algorithm for the scheduling problem of parallel machines with mold constraints

Abstract:- This paper addresses the scheduling problem of parallel machines with mold constraints. Each machine has to load one kind of molds to process a specific job in the production environment. Because it takes lots of time to change one mold to another on a same machine for producing jobs with different types, it will be efficient to put all similar jobs together as a batch production. This way will, however, result in the total tardiness of jobs increasing due to the different due dates of jobs. This kind of problems is an NP-hard problem. In this paper, we build a model to describe the problem and present a heuristic algorithm to solve it