Flow shop scheduling for separation model of set-up and net process based on Branch-and-Bound method

Lots of research reports on flow shop scheduling problems have been reported. Generally speaking, these models are applicable to a simple model with no separation of set-up processes and net ones. In many production lines, we cannot ignore the set-up times in comparison with the net processing times. We can expect to shorten the total processing time by executing the set-up processes and net ones in parallel. We need a parallel operation model to improve schedule results.We will propose a new scheduling method for multi-stage flow shops. The aim of the method is to shorten the total processing time by operating the set-up processes and the net ones of each job in parallel. We applied the Branch-and-Bound method and developed a new calculation algorithm for the lower bound estimation of the total processing time. Finally, we will evaluate our proposed method by some numerical experiments using actual production line data.