- We have to produce a certain number of cars on an assembly line
- Each car is of a certain type and each type has a certain set of features (air- conditioning, sun-roof, etc.)
- We are given the number of cars for each type we want to produce
- The assembly line has different stations which install the various features
- These stations have been designed to handle at most a certain percentage of the cars passing along the assembly line
- Furthermore, the cars requiring a certain feature must not be bunched together, otherwise the station will not be able to cope
- Consequently, the cars must be arranged in a sequence so that the capacity of each station is never exceeded. For instance, if a particular station can only cope with at most two thirds of the cars passing along the line, the sequence must be built so that at most 2 cars in any window of 3 require that feature
- We have to decide the sequence the cars on the assembly line according to these constraints.