Abstract
This paper introduces the balanced-workload idea to solve the multi-job lot streaming problem in two-stage hybrid flow shops with m identical machines at stage 1 and a single machine at stage 2. From the worst case analysis and computational experiments to the single job problem, this idea is proved to be a very close estimation for most cases. Based on this, heuristic solutions are proposed to the multiple-job problem with the criteria of makespan and mean flow time respectively. Comparing with the lower bounds, the experiment results show that the heuristic solutions are close to optimal. Comparing with the only previous research identified, which also presents a heuristic for mean flow time, the heuristic performance in this thesis is much better.