In a multi-type and low-volume production environment, a printed circuit boards(PCBs) assembly scheduling
problem is considered. A mathematical model is proposed to minimize the flow times, in which the setup time accounts
on a considerable proportion. Based on the characteristic of the carryover sequence dependent setups, a reactive tabu search
algorithm is developed to determine the sequences within and among PCB groups. The simulation experiments of contrasting
with the lower bounds of flowtime show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed model and algorithm.