Comparative analysis of scheduling rules through arena for parallel machines: a case study

This study aims to determinate which scheduling rule should be applied, for minimizing the makespan value, and maximizing the utilization level of a production system, which includes a set of three parallel processors, each one integrating five machines, by using a simulation approach based on Arena. A first simulation was done under random conditions, not attending to any kind of rule, and after some dispatching rules were applied, namely the shortest queue rule; the shortest processing time rule; the longest processing time rule; and combination of rules through a weighted sum about completion times and the work in process. A comparative analysis about the application of these rules is carried out in this paper. The rules that have been applied to achieve the goals were selected taking into account not only the problem to be studied, but also different conditions present in a real production system environment. The problem consists on a complex and dynamic system, where each job has the same priority and different processing times, without preemption.The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, through the grant “Projeto Estratégico – UI 252 – 2011–2012” reference PEst-OE/EME/UI0252/2011