Estimating order lead times in hybrid flowshops with different scheduling rules

In this study, we consider a problem of estimating order lead time in hybrid flowshops, where orders arrive dynamically. When an order arrives at the shop, the time duration between the arrival and completion (i.e., lead time) of the order is to be estimated. For good estimation, not only the order specification and the inventory status but also the scheduling method used in the shop should be taken into account. In this study, we consider three most common dispatching rules, i.e., FCFS, EDD, and SPT, for the shop scheduling, and develop three distinct estimation methods for the corresponding dispatching rules. A series of computational experiments were carried out and the results show that the proposed methods outperform the existing benchmarks in terms of two accuracy measures.