Scheduling of multi-site production problem with the machine maintenance by genetic algorithms

The significances of Distributed Scheduling (DS) problems have been recognized by researchers in recent years. DS problems are much more complicated than classical scheduling problems because they involve not only the scheduling problems in a single factory, but also the problems in the upper level, which is how to allocate the jobs to suitable factories. In general, DS problems focus on solving two issues simultaneously: (i) allocation of jobs to suitable factories, and (ii) determination of the corresponding production schedules in each factory. Its objective is to maximize system efficiency by finding an optimal plan for a better collaboration among various processes. However, in many papers, machine maintenance has usually been ignored during the production scheduling. In reality, every machine requires maintenance and the maintenance policy applied will directly influence the machine's availability, and consequently the production scheduling. The objective of this paper is to exanimate the influence of the maintenance curves to the distributed scheduling through three sample experiments.