Scheduling in a two-machine flowshop with batch processing machine(s) for earliness/tardiness measure under a common due date

This paper considers a scheduling problem for a two-machine flowshop with batch processing machine(s) (BPMs) incorporated where the earliness/tardiness (EIT) measure and a common due date are considered. It assumes that each batch has the same processing time and that the common due date is not set earlier than the total job processing time on the first machine. Under these assumptions, some solution properties are characterized for three different problem cases to derive their associated solution algorithms. For the first two cases concerned with two different machine sequences such as batch-to-discrete and batch-to-batch machine sequences, a polynomial time algorithm is derived based on some of the solution properties. For the last case concerned with discrete-to-batch machine sequence, a pseudopolynomial algorithm is exploited. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.