A state-of-the-art survey of dispatching rules for manufacturing job shop operations

Abstract This paper reviews recent studies of dispatching rules. A dispatching rule is used to select the next job to be processed from a set of jobs awaiting service. The paper has two objectives. The first is to discuss the state of the art in the study of dispatching rules. The discussion includes analytical approaches, simulation techniques and evaluation criteria. The second objective of the paper is to compare several of the dispatching rules listed in the Appendix using the results of recently published studies. It is impossible to identify any single rule as the best in all circumstances. However, several rules have been identified as exhibiting good performance in general.