Production scheduling and an application

Determining a sequence of a certain number of jobs to be processed by a certain number of machines is production scheduling problem. It is obvious that this sequence will be different for various objectives.Optimum sequence for these objectives could be found for combinations of a few machines and jobs, though, most of the time that is impossible. In this case, heuristics have been developed to get optimum sequence.At production lines of firms, the first step is to decide on which type of the production scheduling problem is. Then, a quick but approximate solution may be obtained by the implementation of some dispatching rules and their variants, as it is often impossible to solve the problem. Usage of computer programs prepared for this purpose might help applying the production planning function of firms effectively.In this study, after defining scheduling generally, both definition, classification, complexity, solution methods of production scheduling and literature works on the subject are informed, then deterministic and static production scheduling problems are classified and mentioned about the solutions developed. Finally, Lekin computer program used in production scheduling is introduced and a production scheduling algorithm for a scheduling example in furniture industry is suggested.