Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen und Management

An Effective Harmony Search Algorithm for Solving a No-Wait Hybrid Flow Shop Scheduling Problem with Machine Availability Constraint

Abstract

Mohammad Rahmanidoust, Jianguo Zheng and Meysam Rabiee

This research investigates a no-wait hybrid flow shop scheduling problem. Minimizing the mean tardiness is considered as the objective to develop the optimal scheduling algorithm. Characteristics of our considered problem leads to the complexity of problem. First, no-wait operations. Second, setup time of each job is separated from its processing time and depends upon its preceding job. Third, all of jobs aren’t available at the first of scheduling. In other word, each job has individual ready time. Finally, machines are not continuously available due to the preventive maintenance. An effective harmony search algorithm is used to tackle the mentioned problem. A series of computational experiments is conducted by comparing our algorithm with previous meta-heuristic algorithms like population based simulated annealing (PBSA), Adopted imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) and hybridization of PBSA and ICA (ICA+PBSA). To achieve reliable results, Taguchi approach is used to define robust parameters’ values for our proposed algorithm. The computational results with random test problems suggest that our proposed harmony search outperforms the three foregoing algorithms.