In this paper, the problem of batch scheduling in a flexible flow shop environment is studied. It is assumed that machines in some stages are able to process a number of jobs simultaneously. The applications of this problem can be found in various industries including spring and wire manufacturing and in auto industry. A mixed integer programming formulation of the problem is presented and it is shown that the problem is NP-Hard. Three heuristics will then be developed to solve the problem and a lower bound is also developed for evaluating the performance of the proposed heuristics. Results show that heuristic H3 gives better results compared to the others.

Keywords: Scheduling, Flexible flow shop, Sequencing, Batch, Heuristics.

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