Flow time analyses of a simulated flexible job shop by considering jockeying

It has been essential to include flexibility in manufacturing policy making since variability in demand and products are considerably increasing. However, it is important to know and to monitor the proper level and type of flexibility that is required to obtain full benefits from it. This paper analyses the effects of flexibility on flow time performance of a simulated job shop. For that purpose, several scenarios are developed under four flexibility levels with two different machine selection rule and three types of dispatching rules. Furthermore, effect of jockeying as a queuing policy on the flow time performance is also investigated through simulation modeling. Results indicated that full flexibility is a preferable state for most of the cases. However, in some cases, chain configurations perform similar results since it combines the benefits of pooling and specialization. In addition, it is observed that a queue control mechanism like jockeying is an effective way to improve performance even though it may increase complexity of controlling policy