News

We are pleased to announce a new high-ranking publication with the participation of Janis Neufeld in the journal Zeitschrift Operation Research Perspectives! How can factories and greenhouses make better use of their resources when several jobs can run at the same time? Our paper introduces a new scheduling approach and shows how smarter planning can increase efficiency and reduce waiting times.

Peer-reviewed article 

Ahmed Missaoui, Janis S. Neufeld, Barry O’Sullivan Local search methods for the cumulative flow shop scheduling problem, Operations Research Perspectives 17 (2026)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orp.2026.100403

Abstract

Scheduling problems are typically studied under the assumption that each resource can process only one job at a time. However, in many real-world settings, resources are capable of processing multiple jobs simultaneously, leading to cumulative scheduling problems, where each resource can process several jobs up to a specified capacity. While cumulative scheduling has been investigated in job shops and parallel-machine contexts, it remains unexplored in flow shop environments. In this work, we introduce the cumulative flow shop scheduling problem as a generalization of the classical flow shop. We propose a mixed-integer programming formulation along with two metaheuristic approaches – an iterated local search algorithm and an iterated greedy algorithm – designed to minimize total flow time. Both methods incorporate problem-specific features, such as an adapted initial solution and a rescheduling mechanism to improve resource utilization. With this, they demonstrate strong performance in a comprehensive computational study. Additionally, we analyze trade-offs between total flow time and resource utilization, and investigate how varying job sizes and resource capacities affect outcomes. Our findings provide actionable managerial insights and open new avenues for research on cumulative scheduling problems.

Presentation at the Summer Meeting of the VHB Scientific Commission on Logistics (WK LOG): Focus on Exchange and Research

This year’s summer meeting of the VHB’s Scientific Commission on Logistics (WK LOG), which is dedicated to promoting logistics in research and teaching, provided an excellent platform for professional exchange.

Special thanks go to the organizers, led by Frank Meisel, for the successful event in Kiel.

On Saturday, Janis Neufeld presented the research paper “A Decomposition Approach for Large-Scale Rolling Stock Scheduling with Heterogeneous Fleets,” co-authored with Paul Päprer, Martin Scheffler, and Udo Buscher from TU Dresden. The paper highlights innovative approaches to the efficient scheduling of large, heterogeneous rolling stock fleets in rail transport.

Thank you very much for the interesting discussions and valuable insights!

At the Faculty of Economics and Managemement's summer festival, Prof. Dr. Neufeld was awarded the Master’s Programs Teaching Award for his outstanding commitment to teaching during the winter semester 2025/2026.

Congratulations!

(photo: Florian Harkenthal)

Neue Publikation in OMEGA and Computers & Industrial Engineering

At the beginning of the year, we are pleased to announce two new publications by our chair in leading international scientific journals.

The journal Omega published the article “Multi-objective optimization with order acceptance for the cumulative job shop scheduling problem in agribusiness” (Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305048325002300). In this joint work with Mike Hewitt (Loyola University Chicago), Florian Linß, and Udo Buscher (both TU Dresden), Janis Neufeld developed a novel optimization approach for complex scheduling problems in greenhouses, such as those arising in the development of new plant varieties.

In collaboration with Martin Schönheit and Rainer Lasch (both TU Dresden), we investigated the impact of the locations of production facilities and customers on CO₂ emissions in distributed manufacturing systems in the article “Towards holistic environmental awareness in distributed permutation flowshop scheduling: Integrating production and transportation emissions” (Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360835225009453). In contrast to existing approaches, this study also accounts for country-specific energy mixes in electricity generation as well as transportation-related emissions. The proposed self-configuring Iterated Greedy algorithm is capable of efficiently solving this highly complex scheduling problem. This article was published in Computers & Industrial Engineering.

In early September, Janis Neufeld was invited by Prof. Qan-Ke Pan (Shanghai University) and Prof. Xuan He (Shanghai Maritime University) to visit Shanghai. Prof. Pan is recognized as a leading scholar in the field of scheduling of production systems. During the multi-day stay, Janis Neufeld conducted a doctoral course together with our long-time research collaborator Prof. Jatinder ND Gupta (University of Huntsville, Alabama). The course focused on best practices for high-quality research in Operations Research and on strategies for successful publication.

The visit also provided valuable opportunities for exchange with doctoral students and colleagues from both Shanghai University and Shanghai Maritime University. Discussions centered on ongoing projects as well as ideas for future research collaborations. We sincerely thank our hosts for their warm hospitality and look forward to continuing and strengthening this fruitful cooperation.

Picture: Participants of the exchange and doctoral course at Shanghai University