The integrated circuit packaging scheduling problem (ICPSP): A case study

Abstract

The integrated-circuit-packaging scheduling problem (ICPSP) is a variation of the flexible flow-shop scheduling problem, which is also a generalization of the classical flow-shop and the identical parallel-machine problems. In this paper, we present a case study on the ICPSP. For the ICPSP we investigate, the jobs are clustered by their product types, which must be processed on groups of machines at various process stages following the manufacturing sequence, and be completed before the due dates. The job processing time depends on the product type, and the machine setup time is sequentially dependent on the orders of jobs processed. We present two efficient solution procedures to solve the ICPSP case. We generate a set of 11 ICPSP problems, which involve various setup time, processing time, and due date factors. The proposed savings approaches are shown to perform efficiently in solving the ICPSP. Significance: The integrated-circuit-packaging scheduling problem (ICPSP) is a practical but complex scheduling problem, which has many real world applications. The proposed approaches show the superiority to the traditional dispatch rules and solve the ICPSP efficiently.