Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Communication Systems, Inc.

Hidetoshi Haga

Kiyofumi Tanaka

Junichi Ikebe

A method of determining supply sequence of products to be processed to an N-step flow shop type production line, where N is an integer N greater than or equal to 2, is disclosed. To optimize the production time of all the products in the N-step flow shop type production line with high precision, the supply sequence of products to be processed to the N-step flow shop type production line is determined by virtually dividing the N steps to 2 virtual steps on the basis of a total number of necessary man-hour of products to be processed, sequencing the supply of the products to be processed in one of the virtual steps to a first step of the N steps in the order of smallness of the required man-hours for the product, storing the product to be processed in the other virtual step in a stack memory as products for which a new supply sequence is to be determined and repeating the supply sequence determining processing recurrently as long as N is greater than or equal to 2 and the stack memory contains stored virtual steps.

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Hadano, Japan

Hidetoshi Haga