Optimal control of product completion times in single-stage manufacturing systems with finite output buffers

The paper concerns an optimal control problem in single-stage manufacturing systems with finite output buffers. Given a sequence of jobs and their processing order, and given the release time and a due date for each job, the objective is to determine optimal processing times so as to minimize a cost functional consisting of lateness and earliness of the finished products. Jobs completed late are immediately delivered from the system, and jobs completed early are stored at an output buffer while waiting for their due dates. When the buffer gets full the server becomes blocked. Upper-bound and lower-bound constraints on the jobs' delivery times are imposed. The paper analyzes the problem and proposes an efficient algorithm for its solution.