Scheduling Problems with Learning and Ageing Effects: A Survey

Abstract

Abstract. In recent years, many papers concerning scheduling problems with simultaneous learning and ageing effects were published. In this paper, the state of the art of research concerning these problems is presented. In order to facilitate understanding this subject, the scheduling problems where these effects occur separately, are firstly explained. Then, the papers devoted to scheduling problems combining the effects of learning and ageing are discussed. Particular attention was paid on practical applications of the considered scheduling problems. After thorough analysis it turned out that both scheduling problems with learning effect, and with ageing effect, as well as, in particular, the problems with models merging learning and ageing effects do not have any reasonable real-life applications. This is because the learning and ageing effects are in general long time horizon phenomena observed in repetitive systems and scheduling theory concerns either with repetitive short-horizon planning problems or single long-horizon projects. Therefore, there is no sense to continue research considering these scheduling problems from practical (computer engineering, automatic control, technical and economical) point of view, unless such reasonable real-life example appears.

Scheduling problems with a common due window assignment: A survey

“…In this survey, we must emphasize that a combination of scheduling problems and learning or aging effects in one model has no reasonable real-life applications in the literature and that we see no sense in continuing further research considering these scheduling problems from practical (computer engineering, automatic control, technical and economical) point of view, unless such a reasonable real-life example is presented. For a detailed survey of scheduling problems with learning and aging effects, see the work of Janiak et al (2011), where particular attention was paid to practical applications of the mentioned models.…”

Machine scheduling problems with a position-dependent deterioration

“…The skills of firms and employees continuously improve when repeating the same or similar tasks, this phenomenon is known as a learning effect. Extensive surveys of research related to scheduling deteriorating jobs and/or learning effects can be found in Alidaee and Womer [1], Cheng et al [2], Gawiejnowicz [3], and Biskup [4], Janiak et al [5]. More literature which has considered scheduling jobs with deteriorating jobs and/or learning effects includes Cheng et al [6], Wang [7][8][9], Lee and Wu [10], Lee et al [11], Wu and Lee [12], Wang et al [13], Yin et al [14], Zhang and Yan [15], Huang et al [16], Liu et al [17], Rudek [18,19], Wang and Wang [20], Lai et al [21], Shen et al [22], Wang and Wang [23], Wang et al [24], Ji et al [25], Lu et al [26], Wang and Wang [27,28], Wang and Liu [29], Yin et al [30], Yin et al [31], Yin et al [32], Yin et al [33], Niu et al [34], and Bai et al [35].…”

Combining time and position dependent effects on a single machine subject to rate-modifying activities

“…A review and further extensions of these models can be found in surveys [2] and [9]. In particular, it is shown in [2], that if the effects are job-independent, enhanced scheduling problems that combine a linear timedependent effect and a fairly general positional effect, can be handled by the same mathematical tools as the problems with individual effects.…”

“…Although more exotic models have also been considered (see, e.g., [8] and [9] for reviews), many authors pose questions regarding their practical relevance. Thus, in this paper we concentrate on linear time-dependent effects.…”