A comparative analysis of two different approaches to scheduling in flexible flow shops

This work is an investigation about the relative effectiveness of two approaches to scheduling in flexible flow shops: one approach advocating the possible use of different dispatching rules at different stages of the flow shop, and the other suggesting the use of the same dispatching rule at all the stages of the flow shop. In the latter approach, the dispatching rule contains the information related to both process time and due-date. Both approaches aim at the minimization of measures related to flowtime and tardiness of jobs. This paper essentially is an attempt at exploring the relative effectiveness of these two approaches to scheduling.