Background: The key performance index for the container terminals is the vessel berthing time which is highly affected by the scheduling of the different handling equipment. Proper integrated scheduling of the handling equipment is crucial, especially in automated container terminals, where all...

Some of the previous research indicates that no single priority rule could perform excellently on those common performance measures. This study focuses on evaluating the impact of deploying combinations of four single priority rules on a three-stage manufacturing flow shop, i.e., different rules...

Little is known about the interaction among manufacturing subsystems in a factory. The output of one manufacturing subsystem is usually the input to one or more others in the plant. For example, a production line may provide input to another manufacturing stage, a shipping system, or an...

Worksharing occurs in serial manufacturing when machines are not uniquely assigned to workers. For example, two workers can operate three machines by alternating usage of the middle one. In some other worksharing systems operators move down the line carrying an item (or batch) with them, working...

Efficient production resettings are necessary to achieve production flexibility. For this reason, it is of primary importance to reduce the setup time required to switch the production from one product type to another, and more generally to minimise the loss of production during these resetting...

This paper concerns the modeling of low inventory lines. Currently, most models assume that processing times are independent. We consider the differences in behavior of workers in low- and high-inventory production lines. Using a laboratory experiment we show that workers speed up when they are...