Integrated scheduling of distributed manufacturing with assembly and distribution: state of the art, challenges, and future directions

Distributed manufacturing systems are very complex scheduling problems due to strong interactions between the production, distribution, and assmebly stages. This review paper surveys recent studies on modelling and optimising distributed manufacturing systems based on integrated scheduling problems. A total of 81 articles published in SCI- and SSCI-indexed journals from January 2020 to August 2025 are reviewed. First, we classify the integrated scheduling problems according to optimisation objectives, number of objectives, constraints, and the presence of uncertainties. Second, we analyse the use of meta-heuristics, highlighting algorithm structures, single- and multi-objective formulations, performance evaluation metrics, stopping criteria, and benchmark instances. Third, we identify key challenges and limitations in applying meta-heuristics to these complex scheduling problems. Finally, we summarise the current state of the field and propose promising directions for future research.