Cyclic scheduling of a hoist with time window constraints

Abstract : This paper proposes a model and a related algorithm for generating optimal cyclic schedules of hoist moves with time window constraints in a printed circuit board (PCB) electroplating facility. The algorithm is based on the branch and bound approach and requires the solution of a specific class of linear programming problems (LPP). These LPP are equivalent to the problems of the cycle time evaluation in bi-valued graphs. Computational experience is presented to compare the results obtained using this new algorithm with the ones proposed in the literature.