A decision support system for scheduling jobs on multi-port dyeing machines

In this paper we report the development and implementation of a decision support system to solve a complex scheduling system for a major apparel fabric company with annual sales of more than $2.5 billion. For the first phase of the problem, we developed a linear programming model to generate optimal machine loads. For the second phase, we designed a heuristic to minimize the delays that occur during the subsequent fabric roll selection and sequencing operations. Our system completely replaced tedious manual calculations with optimal machine loads, greatly improved the overall quality of their products, and produced unexpected benefits such as practically eliminating the high turnover of scheduling operators.