Abstract
This paper addresses a generalization of the coupled-operations scheduling problem in the context of a flow shop environment. We consider the two-machine scheduling problem with the objective of minimizing the makespan. Each job consists of a coupled-operation to be processed first on the first machine and a single operation to be then processed on the second machine. A coupled-operation contains two operations separated by an exact time delay. The single operation can start on the second machine only when the coupled-operation on the first machine is completed. We prove the NP-completeness of two restricted versions of the general problem, whereas we also exhibit several other well solvable cases.
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The authors gratefully wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of this paper and for their valuable and useful comments. Their contributions greatly helped to improve the paper.
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Meziani, N., Oulamara, A. & Boudhar, M. Two-machine flowshop scheduling problem with coupled-operations. Ann Oper Res 275, 511–530 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-2967-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-2967-z