Minimum Change-Over Scheduling of Several Products on One Machine

Given a finite horizon delivery schedule for n products we wish to schedule production on a single machine to meet deliveries and minimize the number of change-overs of the machine from one product to another. A state space is defined and in it a network is constructed such that the shortest distance through the network corresponds to the minimum number of production change-overs. Certain properties of the optimal path are deduced from the dynamic programming formulation of the shortest route problem, and these properties are utilized in the construction of an algorithm that finds the optimal path. A numerical example illustrates the method.