Generic Scheduling by an Optimization Model Demonstrated for a Partly Automated Production Line

Companies often use specially-designed production systems and change them from time to time.
Thus, such production systems have special technological restrictions. They produce small batches in
order to satisfy specific demands with the least tardiness. This imposes high demands on highperformance
scheduling algorithms which can be rapidly adapted to changes in the production
system. As a solution, this paper proposes a generic approach: Solutions were obtained using a
widely-used commercially-available tool for solving linear optimization models, which is available in an
Enterprise Resource Planning System (in the SAP system for example) or can be connected to it. In a
real-world application of a flow shop with special restrictions this approach is successfully used on a
standard personal computer. Thus, the main implication is that optimal scheduling with a
commercially-available tool may be the best approach.