Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Asynchronous T-Step Approximation For Scheduling Batch Flow Systems, David R. Grimsman

Theses and Dissertations

Heap models in the max-plus algebra are interesting dynamical systems that can be used to model a variety of tetris-like systems, such as batch flow shops for manufacturing models. Each heap in the model can be identified with a single product to manufacture. The objective is to manufacture a group of products in such an order so as to minimize the total manufacturing time. Because this scheduling problem reduces to a variation of the Traveling Salesman Problem (known to be NP-complete), the optimal solution is computationally infeasible for many real-world systems. Thus, a feasible approximation method is needed. This work …