Lot streaming in open shops

We study lot streaming in shops in which the order the jobs are to be processed is immaterial. For a single job case, the properties of the optimal routing is determined. For the multi job case, two machine shops are analyzed. It is shown that lot streaming will improve makespan only if there is a job with large processing times. We show that there can be at most one such job and derive the optimal sublot sizes and their sequence. c 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.