APIEMS2009 Dec.

14-16, Kitakyushu

Development of Decision Support Software for Production

Scheduling of Glass Industry

Roongrat Pisuchpen 1, Nipa Chongchoho2
Department of Industrial Engineering
Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, THAILAND
Email: fengros@ku.ac.th1
n_nipac@hotmail.com2

Abstract. The objective of this research is to develop a program for a production scheduling. In addition, it
also concentrates on developing the user interface to key in data and modify which is appropriate for the
actual situation encounted. This research studies the production scheduling system of a glass industry. The
production scheduling systems have 10 job types and different process routing. From traditional job
scheduling, we found that the delivery date was often tardiness. This research proposes the computer
simulation software (Arena) used for planning and presents heuristic approaches such as Shortest Processing
Time (SPT), Earliest Due Date (EDD), Earliness cost to Tardiness cost Ratio (ETR), Longest Processing Time
(LPT) and Least Operation Number (LOPN) to minimize the total cost.

Keywords: Simulation, Microsoft Excel, Production Scheduling.

1. INTRODUCTION
Many real scheduling problems are represented as Job
Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP). Because almost all
scheduling problems, comprising JSSP, are the NP hard
optimization problems, an efficient approximate method is
required. The approximate methods are categorized in
heuristics and meta-heuristics. Meta-heuristics are methods
that search many solutions simultaneously by simple
calculation and choose the best one in the solutions. This
category includes Genetic-Algorithm and Simulated-
Annealing.
Job shop scheduling is essentially a task of allocation of
machines over time to the jobs in such a way that the selected
performance criteria are optimized. For the shops running in
the make-to-order fashion, the most important goal is to
complete the customers orders within the specified due
dates.
This research studied about production scheduling
system of the glass industry. The findings of production
scheduling systems have 10 job types with different process
routing. From the traditional job scheduling, we found that
the delivery date was often tardiness. This proposed the
computer simulation software (Arena) that used for planning
and presents the heuristic approach such as Shortest
Processing Time (SPT), Earliest Due Date (EDD), Earliness
cost to Tardiness cost Ratio (ETR), Longest Processing Time
(LPT) and Least Operation Number (LOPN) to minimize the total
cost.
2. HEURISTIC METHOD
Heuristics depend on experience and expertise like
dispatching rules. Since the dispatching rules are based on
experience and expertise, some of the dispatch rules are not
effective for some problems, i. e., conventionally, there is no
dispatch rule that always gives good solution for any
problem. Therefore, it is useful to develop a new rule that can
be applied to many problems. Dispatching rules have been
applied for this analysis. This is due to that they are
commonly used in manufacturing. The rules are following.
a. Short Processing Time (SPT ): The short processing time
could be the most well known dispatching rule, and was
usually reported to perform well on minimizing tardy rate
when the shop has high utilization and/or tight due date
setting .
b. Earliest Due Date (EDD): The earliest due date is the
representative of dispatching rules focused on due date-
based objectives.

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: Roongrat Pisuchpen

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c. Longest Processing Time (LPT): The longest processing
time selected a job which has the longest processing time.
d. Earliness cost to Tardiness cost Ratio (ETR): The
earliness cost is devided by the tardiness cost and selected
min ratio to produce first.
e. Least Operation Number (LOPN): The least operation
number selected a job which has the least operation
number to produce first.
4 .GLASS INDUSTRY OVERVIEW
The company produces a wide variety of glass, about
100 types of product variants. The process have 10 different
routings which are depend on production type. Each type of
product has different processing time. The product are
delivered to different locations in Europe and Asia. The
system consists of 9 workstations. The numbers of resource
in each workstion are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Workstation of Glass Production.
In work station side printing, bottom printing, glass
edge coating and drying oven all product are produce with
Automatic machine and conveyor, so all processing time in
those station are constant value that equal as every pieces in
each lot. But in work station frosting, sticker, decal, sand
In workstation Side Printing, Bottom Printing, Glass
Edge Coating and Drying Oven are produced with
automatic machine and conveyor. Therefore, the products
are produced with all processing time in those stations are
constant. But in workstation Frosting, Sticker, Decal, Sand
blast and Packing, they are produced with human workers,
so the processing time are represented in term of
distribution.
The process routings of each station are shown in
Table 2. Workstation Bottom Printing always produce after
Side Printing and in every routing type have work in
Packing station as the last sequence.
Nowadays, the scheduler uses Earliest Due Date
(EDD) and experience to scheduling. The result of that
method has poor performance. Simulation is applied to use
with the dispatching rules to enhance the performance of
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Dec. 14-16, Kitakyushu
the system.
Table 2 : Process Routing Type.
Assumptions in this study are as follows.
(1) Each one of the incoming jobs is assigned a specific
job order number.
(2) Due-dates are known in advance.
(3) No pre-emption of job operation (machining and
assembly) is permitted.
(4) The routing of jobs is known and no two operations
will be carried out on the same machine.
(5) The set-up times are included in the processing time.
(6)There are no alternative routings.
(7)The jobs are independent of each other; no assembly is
involved.
(8) An operation on any job cannot be performed until all
previous operations on the job are completed.
3 .MEDTHODOLOGY
Many systems such as manufacturing, supply chain,
and container terminals are too complex to be modeled
analytically. Discrete event simulation has been a useful
tool for evaluating the performance of such systems.
However, simulation modeling requires a user who
knowledge to execute the program. Hence, this paper was
to develop the input module with Excel VBA code to
facilitate the user to use the simulation program.
Simulation module is used to construct a schedule
considering all the constraints. In simulation, parts of the
parameters of simulation model are controlled by VB
program, e.g., the attributes of each order (routing type,
processing time and cost) and the running and stopping
criterion of simulation model.
 APIEMS2009 Dec. 14-16, Kitakyushu

- Shortest Processing Time (SPT)

- Earliest Due Date (EDD)
- Earliness cost to Tardiness cost Ratio (ETR)
- Longest Processing Time (LPT)
- Least Operation Number (LOPN)

From Figure 1, the simulation method for glass

manufacturing scheduling consists of two relative
unattached modules, namely, Excel user interface module
and simulation process module. Figure 2 shows the
simulation model of this support scheduling program.

Figure 2: Arena Simulation Model

5. SCHEDULING PROGRAM

5.1 User Interface

Since modeling a complex system is not an easy task

using spreadsheets. This decision support software is
programmed using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
VBA allows sharing data among the spreadsheet and the
specific simulation package. This arrangement facilitates the
Figure 1: Framework of Simulation Process interaction of the user with the simulation software,
eliminating the requirement of knowing the programming
Arena10.0 is used to develop the simulation model. language. Figure 3 shows the decision support software
To facilitate the modeling process, the modeling tools of integration.
Arena provide abundant panels for users, and many
modules are incorporated in the panels. Modules are the
basic components of Arena model, which can be classified
into flowchart module and data module.
To improve the running speed of the simulation, the
entities in model are not endowed with pictures; and the
simulation interface is not displayed when running
simulation models. Meanwhile, the logic relations among
module are simplified as possible. In simulation module,
five rules, namely Figure 3: The Decision Support Software Integration.

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 APIEMS2009 Dec. 14-16, Kitakyushu

Initially, the user only interacts with the spreadsheet

once the input data is complete, the VBA code takes the data
and send it to the simulation software. The simulation
software runs and generates the default information in a
report file. The VBA code reads the information and selects
that one which is relevant for the decision maker. Finally the
information is send to the spreadsheet and presented in a easy
way to be understood by the user, such that the user may
perform an analysis of the process, identifying opportunities,
and making decisions about how to improve the process.
Actually, one of the challenges to use discrete event
simulation modeling as decision support system are that
many people do not know how to program a simulation code, Figure 4: Production order data
they are not willing to spent time learning a programming
code, or they adopt a skeptical attitude to the benefits of the As shown in Figure 5, the user can add new type and
simulation, such that will be easier for the users to reject the processing time of each type in Add Type form. Processing
software instead of used (Centeno and Carrillo 2001). time of each station can put in distribution function form
Considering this fact, the game interface runs over a when user think processing time is distribution.
spreadsheet, which is common general software used such as
production, finance, accounting, and so on (Rao et al. 1998).
Also, the interface pays attention to usability concepts. For
the visual interface design criteria, several sources were
consulted, including the general interface design
methodology proposed by Brown (1989).
Interface objects Organization
Color set for interface window
Font set for interface window
Verification and Control for object activation

For verification and control the spreadsheets are

protected. Also, all the input cells have activated the data
validation option, this command allows to include an input
message specifying the valid input data, such as integer
values, decimal values, time, money, and so on. In case a
student type invalid data an error alert remarks this fact
indicating the type of data expected.
5.2 User Form of Decision Support Software
Figure 5: Process Routing Data
When user complete data input process they can select
dispatching rules to schedule production order from user
form and command run program to Arena as show in
Figure 6. Additional, the program allow user to change the
inventory cost of each order type (see Figure 7).

In this paper we study and develop decision support

system for scheduling problem of glass industry that
program can be divided in six parts as the following.
- Production order
- Manufacturing cost data
- Process routing and processing time data
- Dispatching rule selection
- Scheduling output data

Production order scheduler can put an order in the data

form .The form showing in Figure 4. Figure 6: Select Dispatching Rule

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 APIEMS2009 Dec. 14-16, Kitakyushu

Figure 9 , this form show detail about total cost (inventory

cost and penalty cost), number of tardy jobs, makespan and
sequence of each station of each job.

5. RESULT

We receive production order data from a glass industry

to schedule from our decision support software. As
production order show in Table 3, they have 63 production
order and 10 routing type. They must complete all
production order in one week if not they must pay a
penalty to customer. In the case production order finish
early, the inventory cost will be incured. Production order
data show as in Table 3.

Table 3: Production order data

Figure 7: Production Order Data
Lot Quantity Duedate Inventory Cost Penalty Cost
And output of total cost when user run with all dispatching Order Type
(Pcs) (Days) Baht/Order/Day Baht/Order/Day
rules were show in Figure 8.
1 1 1872 6 9.36 200
2 1 2880 6 14.4 300
3 1 3888 7 19.44 400
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
62 10 1872 6 9.36 400
63 10 1440 6 7.2 300

From this research comparison using real production

data in August 2008 between heuristic algorithm to
Figure 8: Program Output generate active schedules the result indicates that Longest
Processing Time dispatching rules is the best method
If user want to know all detail of each dispatching rules can because in minimizing the total cost.
select detailed information.

Figure 10: Total Cost

Figure 9: Program Output Each Station

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