Flow Shop Lot Streaming

Lot streaming is a process of breaking a batch of jobs into smaller lots, and then processing these in an overlapping fashion on the machines. This important concept can significantly improve the overall performance of a production process, and thereby make the operation of a manufacturing system lean. Flow Shop Lot Streaming introduces the reader to this significant production process, presents various analysis techniques, and allows the reader to quickly become conversant with the state-of-the-art techniques necessary to embark on new research directions. This text begins with an introduction to and a brief historical perspective of the lot streaming problem, and continues with generic mathematical models for this problem. Flow Shop Lot Streaming presents systematic analysis, algorithms, key ideas and illustrative examples using 2-machine, 3-machine, and the general m-machine flow shop lot streaming problems. §Flow Shop Lot Streaming will appeal to production and operations management engineers, researchers, and academics interested in implementing the latest models, analysis, and algorithms in the study of manufacturing systems.This book discusses the process of "Lot Streaming" and how it can significantly improve the overall performance of a production process, and thereby, make the operation of a manufacturing system lean. It provides a complete introduction to the Flow Shop Lot Streaming Problem and provides a historical perspective. It further§presents algorithms for a variety of lot streaming problems with numerical illustrations for ease of understanding and implementation.