Optimal streaming of a single job in a two-stage flow shop

Lot streaming is moving some portion of a process batch ahead to begin a downstream operation. The problem to be considered in this paper is the following: a single job consisting of U units is to be processed on two machines in the given order. Given a fixed number of possible transfer batches between the two machines, the problem is to find the timing and the size of the transfer batches (or, sublets) so as to optimize a given criterion. The schedules can be evaluated based on job completion, sublet completion, or item completion times. In the single job lot streaming problem, minimizing job completion time corresponds to minimizing the makespan, for which formulas for optimal sublet sizes are available. In this paper, the results for the sublet and item completion time models are presented. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.