Simulation based scheduling using a two-pass approach

Bottleneck-based scheduling is a popular approach in production scheduling, and it has achieved promising results in industry. To incorporate this approach in discrete event simulation tools is difficult since the approach requires multiple passes, forward and backward, to reach a good solution for the scheduling problem. We propose a two-pass scheduling approach using discrete-event simulation that takes bottlenecks into consideration. In the first pass, a simulation run is performed and bottlenecks are determined. If significant bottlenecks are identified, a second-pass simulation is performed to reduce the loading on bottlenecks through specific scheduling strategies.