A Three-Machine Flowshop Scheduling Problem with Linear Fatigue Effect

Weiping Xu, Zehou Sun, Xiaotian Ai (), Baoyun Zhao, Jingyi Lu, Hanyu Zhou, Xinqi Mao, Xiaoling Wen, Chin-Chia Wu and Shufeng Liu ()
Additional contact information
Weiping Xu: School of Management, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Zehou Sun: School of Management, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Xiaotian Ai: Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute, Shenyang 110854, China
Baoyun Zhao: Software College, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Jingyi Lu: Software College, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Hanyu Zhou: Software College, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Xinqi Mao: Software College, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Xiaoling Wen: Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute, Shenyang 110854, China
Chin-Chia Wu: Department of Statistics, Feng Chia University, Taichung 40724, Taiwan
Shufeng Liu: Guobiao (Beijing) Testing & Certification Co., Ltd., Beijing 101407, China

Mathematics, 2025, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-26

Abstract: Highly customized requirements in smart manufacturing result in the unavoidable manual execution of complex operational procedures. Physical and mental fatigue from long work periods for assembly-line operators induces production issues, such as defective work-in-processes or equipment failure. An effective production schedule should account for worker fatigue. This study investigates a three-machine flowshop scheduling problem with the objective of makespan minimization, in which a linear fatigue effect function provides an approximate mathematical representation of fatigue and recovery processes in workers. A mixed integer programming (MIP) model is developed to optimize the integration of automated and human-operated production in manufacturing systems. Given its NP-hardness, an improved tabu search (ITS) algorithm is designed to obtain high-quality solutions, incorporating multiple initial solutions, a well-designed encoding-decoding strategy, and a tabu-based adaptive search mechanism to enhance efficiency. Numerical simulations indicate the veracity of the MIP model and the effectiveness of the ITS algorithm.

Keywords: flow shop scheduling; fatigue effect; tabu search; makespan; fatigue phase; rest phase (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/22/3670/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/22/3670/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:13:y:2025:i:22:p:3670-:d:1795637

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().