Authors:
Ondřej Benedikt
1
;
2
;
Přemysl Šůcha
1
and
Zdeněk Hanzálek
1
Affiliations:
1
Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics, Czech Technical University in Prague, Jugoslávských partyzánů 1580/3, Prague, Czech Republic
;
2
Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Control Engineering, Karlovo náměstí 13, Prague, Czech Republic
Keyword(s):
Scheduling, Energy Optimization, Operation Modes, Mixed Integer Linear Programming, Parallel Machines.
Abstract:
This paper, inspired by a real production process of steel hardening, investigates a scheduling problem to minimize
the idle energy consumption of machines. The energy minimization is achieved by switching a machine
to some power-saving mode when it is idle. For the steel hardening process, the mode of the machine (i.e.,
furnace) can be associated with its inner temperature. Contrary to the recent methods, which consider only
a small number of machine modes, the temperature in the furnace can be changed continuously, and so an
infinite number of the power-saving modes must be considered to achieve the highest possible savings. To
model the machine modes efficiently, we use the concept of the energy function, which was originally introduced
in the domain of embedded systems but has yet to take roots in the domain of production research. The
energy function is illustrated with several application examples from the literature. Afterward, it is integrated
into a mathematical model of a s
cheduling problem with parallel identical machines and jobs characterized
by release times, deadlines, and processing times. Numerical experiments show that the proposed model
outperforms a reference model adapted from the literature.
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