Lot-Streaming Workshop Scheduling with Operation Flexibility: Review and Extension

Lot-streaming scheduling methods with operation flexibility have been widely used in aerospace, semiconductor, automotive, pharmaceutical and other manufacturing enterprises. Lot-splitting scheduling methods have attracted much more attention from academia and industry due to an urgent requirement for an effective way to improve the productivity of the flexible workshop scheduling. During the past decade, many works have been made on the different lot-streaming scheduling methods of the flexible workshop scheduling. The scope of this review focuses on the journal publications collected in the Web of Science database, among which 80% are from high-ranked journals. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive survey on the lot-streaming workshop scheduling with operation flexibility. First, the lot-streaming methods of jobs are discussed and the objectives as well as constraints in applications are summarized. Then, the problem models and their solution approaches are reviewed. Next, the research trends of problem applications, modeling and solution approaches are recalled. Finally, the potential future research directions are concluded.