Chaos Theory in Production Scheduling

In this paper the concept of chaos in manufacturing systems is briefly introduced and tools used in the characterization of a chaotic system are discussed. The scheduling of a simple manufacturing system, with the help of commonly used assignment rules, has been simulated first. The results have been studied with the help of phase portraits. Some conclusions have been drawn and a new method for scheduling is proposed. The method is tested against conventional rules and the results are evaluated and discussed.