Job shop scheduling: Experimental investigation of the performance of alternative scheduling rules

An analysis of job shop performance for different scheduling rules is evaluated using computer simulation. Fourteen different scheduling rules and six performance measures were used in the analysis. The interaction of scheduling rules with two other independent factors, service time distributions and shop load levels, were also analysed. The experimental results showed that the shop load level has a significant effect on system performance but does not interact with the other two independent variables, and the choice of a scheduling rule cannot be made independent of the service time distribution. In general, the simple operation-time-based rules produced the best combination of results for the performance measures evaluated.