A hybrid approach for solving shift-selection and task-sequencing problems

  • Authors:

  • Ada Barlatt;Amy M. Cohn;Oleg Gusikhin

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI;University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI;Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, MI

  • Venue:
  • CPAIOR'08 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Integration of AI and OR techniques in constraint programming for combinatorial optimization problems
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

A common problem in production planning is to sequence a series of tasks so as to meet demand while satisfying operational constraints. This problem can be challenging to solve in its own right. It becomes even more challenging when higher-level decisions are also taken into account, such as which shifts should be selected to accommodate production. In this paper, we introduce the Shift-Selection and Task Sequencing (SS-TS) problem, develop the hybrid Test-and-Prune algorithm (T&P) to solve SS-TS, and present computational experiments based on a real-world problem in automotive stamping to demonstrate its effectiveness. In particular, we are able to solve, in very short run times, a number of problem instances that could not be solved through traditional integer programming methods.