Cost-time profile simulation for job shop scheduling decisions

Abstract

Manufacturers have to look constantly for new strategies and tools to improve processes, decrease cost and increase productivity and efficiency. Production scheduling is one of the crucial elements in manufacturing and has an impact on delivery deadlines and also on the production process in terms of its utilization. On the other hand, the value stream optimization is very important for lean manufacturing efforts. This paper is aimed to research the impact of job shop scheduling on value stream optimization and decreasing of cost-time investment. Value stream mapping represents a very efficient tool for visualization of activities within production flow focused on activity duration with the purpose to eliminate non-value added activities. Value stream costing is based on value stream and eliminates the need for overhead allocation and calculation. Cost-time profile is a powerful tool for visualization and calculation of cost accumulation during the time across the entire manufacturing flow. Software tools used in this paper are: Lekin scheduling system for constructing the schedules based on four different dispatching rules and Cost-Time Profiler software for simulating the impact of different schedules on total production cost and cost-time investment (representing the time value of money), which is proposed as a new scheduling objective function. © 2013 DAAAM International Vienna All Rights Reserved.