Flow shop scheduling for prefabricated components production considering parallel machines and buffer constraints

This study introduces a novel scheduling approach to enhance the efficiency of prefabricated component production by integrating parallel equipment scheduling with intra- and inter-process constraints. It employs a homogeneous parallel equipment setup to maximize the productivity of individual production lines. The model further accounts for limited buffer spaces and prefabricated components' release times. Additionally, it incorporates factors such as the expiration of release agents and concrete setting times, which are crucial for the practical application of the scheduling strategy. A numerical analysis, informed by a case study from a prefabricated factory in Shenyang, China, demonstrates that this approach substantially reduces production time. Specifically, the proposed scheduling strategy results in a 26.47% reduction in total time compared to traditional manual scheduling, with the incorporation of multiple buffer constraints improving the accuracy of scheduling predictions. The model addresses the impact of multiple production constraints on productivity to formulate more precise scheduling plans for prefabricated component production across diverse production environments.