Flexible Assembly Flowshop Scheduling with Batch Delivery Based on Analysis Target Cascading

A flexible assembly flowshop scheduling with batch delivery problem is abstracted for practical manufacturing scenarios that include multiple stages of processing, partial assembly, final assembly, and distribution. This article has constructed an integer programming model with the optimization objective of minimizing the sum of finished product inventory costs, delivery batch costs, and order delay costs. This model not only involves the hierarchical coupling constraints between assembly related components in the product structure, but also considers the demand for consolidated shipping between different orders at the same address. Considering that such models are difficult to directly solve large-scale problems, we innovatively decompose the overall model into three-layer sub models for the stages of final assembly and distribution, partial assembly and processing, and then achieve efficient coordination and optimization of each sub model based on the analysis target cascading method. Finally, the advantages of the proposed decomposition coordination solution method over overall model solving and intelligent algorithm solving were verified through dozens of numerical examples.