From the classical job shop to a real problem: A genetic algorithm approach

The paper has two main goals. One is to point out the gap existing between the classical job shop problem, for which many procedures have been developed, and a real manufacturing problem that generalizes the job shop, highlighting the points needed to be strengthened in order to get more pragmatic results. The second goal is to design an efficient (acceptable solution quality and fast) method to solve a real problem coming from a manufacturing process. The first goal is achieved by a rigorous definition of both problems emphasizing the differences. The second goal is achieved by applying problem-specific knowledge to the schedule construction method. Numerical experiments are presented as a justification of our second achievement