Scheduling with multi-attribute setup times

In this paper we address a scheduling problem with multi-attribute setup times originated from the manufacturing plant of a company producing PVC sheets. In the considered scheduling problem, each job has a number of attributes and each attribute has one or more levels. Because there is at least one different level of attribute between two adjacent jobs, it is necessary to make a setup adjustment whenever there is a switch to a different job. The objective of the problem is to determine a processing sequence so as to minimize the total setup time on a single machine.