Polynomial time algorithms for the UET permutation flowshop problem with time delays

This paper addresses the problem of scheduling a set of n unit execution time (UET) jobs on an m-permutation flowshop with arbitrary time delays, so as to minimize the makespan criterion. A polynomial time algorithm is exhibited for the three-machine and four-machine cases, respectively.     

New simple constructive heuristic algorithms for minimizing total flow-time in the permutation flowshop scheduling problem

This paper develops a set of new simple constructive heuristic algorithms to minimize total flow-time for an $n$-jobs×$m$-machines permutation flowshop scheduling problem. We first propose a new iterative algorithm based on the best existing simple heuristic algorithm, and then integrate new indicator variables for weighting jobs into this algorithm. We also propose new decision criteria to select the best partial sequence in each iteration of our algorithm. A comprehensive numerical experiment reveals that our modifications and extensions improve the effectiveness of the best existing simple heuristic without affecting its computational efficiency.     

The distributed permutation flowshop scheduling problem

This paper studies a new generalization of the regular permutation flowshop scheduling problem (PFSP) referred to as the distributed permutation flowshop scheduling problem or DPFSP. Under this generalization, we assume that there are a total of F identical factories or shops, each one with m machines disposed in series. A set of n available jobs have to be distributed among the F factories and then a processing sequence has to be derived for the jobs assigned to each factory. The optimization criterion is the minimization of the maximum completion time or makespan among the factories. This production setting is necessary in today's decentralized and globalized economy where several production centers might be available for a firm. We characterize the DPFSP and propose six different alternative mixed integer linear programming (MILP) models that are carefully and statistically analyzed for performance. We also propose two simple factory assignment rules together with 14 heuristics based on dispatching rules, effective constructive heuristics and variable neighborhood descent methods. A comprehensive computational and statistical analysis is conducted in order to analyze the performance of the proposed methods.     

置换流水车间调度问题的两阶段分布估计算法

针对置换流水车间调度问题,以最小化总流水时间为目标,提出了一种新颖的两阶段分布估计算法。第一阶段先利用NEH（Nawaz-Enscore-Ham,NEH）启发式构造一个较优的初始个体,然后随机生成初始种群,为保留种群的多样性,提出一种择优机制来选择个体并建立概率模型,同时在当代种群中利用精英机制保留当代种群中的最优解,最后利用概率模型采样并生成下一代种群。第二阶段采用插入、互换操作算子对第一阶段得到的最优解进行邻域搜索,来提高分布估计算法的全局搜索能力,阻止其陷入局部最优解。通过对算例进行实验、对比和分析,证明该算法的可行性和有效性。     

A hybrid estimation of distribution algorithm for simulation-based scheduling in a stochastic permutation flowshop

The permutation flowshop scheduling problem (PFSP) is NP-complete and tends to be more complicated when considering stochastic uncertainties in the real-world manufacturing environments. In this paper, a two-stage simulation-based hybrid estimation of distribution algorithm (TSSB-HEDA) is presented to schedule the permutation flowshop under stochastic processing times. To deal with processing time uncertainty, TSSB-HEDA evaluates candidate solutions using a novel two-stage simulation model (TSSM). This model first adopts the regression-based meta-modelling technique to determine a number of promising candidate solutions with less computation cost, and then uses a more accurate but time-consuming simulator to evaluate the performance of these selected ones. In addition, to avoid getting trapped into premature convergence, TSSB-HEDA employs both the probabilistic model of EDA and genetic operators of genetic algorithm (GA) to generate the offspring individuals. Enlightened by the weight training process of neural networks, a self-adaptive learning mechanism (SALM) is employed to dynamically adjust the ratio of offspring individuals generated by the probabilistic model. Computational experiments on Taillard’s benchmarks show that TSSB-HEDA is competitive in terms of both solution quality and computational performance.     

A memetic algorithm for the re-entrant permutation flowshop scheduling problem to minimize the makespan

A common assumption in the classical permutation flowshop scheduling model is that each job is processed on each machine at most once. However, this assumption does not hold for a re-entrant flowshop in which a job may be operated by one or more machines many times. Given that the re-entrant permutation flowshop scheduling problem to minimize the makespan is very complex, we adopt the CPLEX solver and develop a memetic algorithm (MA) to tackle the problem. We conduct computational experiments to test the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and compare it with two existing heuristics. The results show that CPLEX can solve mid-size problem instances in a reasonable computing time, and the proposed MA is effective in treating the problem and outperforms the two existing heuristics.     

A discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm with self-adaptive diversity control for the permutation flowshop problem with blocking

This paper proposes a discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) algorithm for the m-machine permutation flowshop scheduling problem with blocking to minimize the makespan, which has a strong industrial background, e.g., many production processes of chemicals and pharmaceuticals in chemical industry can be reduced to this problem. To prevent the DPSO from premature convergence, a self-adaptive diversity control strategy is adopted to diversify the population when necessary by adding a random perturbation to the velocity of each particle according to a probability controlled by the diversity of the current population. In addition, a stochastic variable neighborhood search is used as the local search to improve the search intensification. Computational results using benchmark problems show that the proposed DPSO algorithm outperforms previous algorithms proposed in the literature and that it can obtain 111 new best known upper bounds for the 120 benchmark problems.     

A linkage mining in block-based evolutionary algorithm for permutation flowshop scheduling problem

A genetic algorithm is a type of heuristic algorithm used to solve permutation flowshop scheduling problems (PFSPs). Producing an optimal offspring with a variety of genes is difficult because of the evolution of the gene selection and a crossover mechanism that leads to local optima. This study proposes a linkage mining in block-based evolutionary algorithm (LMBBEA) for solving the PFSP, in which the association rule extracts various good genes and increases gene diversity. These genes are used to generate various blocks for artificial chromosome combinations. The generated blocks not only improve the chance of finding optimal solutions but also enhance the efficiency of convergence. The proposed LMBBEA is compared with other algorithms through numerical experiments, namely the Taillard and Reeves experiments in the OR-Library. To compare with other algorithms, the solutions produced by the proposed LMBBEA are closest to the optimal solution. The LMBBEA has a high convergence speed and a better solution quality due to an increase in the diversity of solutions.     

A Self-guided Genetic Algorithm for permutation flowshop scheduling problems

In this paper we develop a Self-guided Genetic Algorithm (Self-guided GA), which belongs to the category of Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs). Most EDAs explicitly use the probabilistic model to sample new solutions without using traditional genetic operators. EDAs make good use of the global statistical information collected from previous searches but they do not efficiently use the location information about individual solutions. It is recently realized that global statistical information and location information should complement each other during the evolution process. In view of this, we design the Self-guided GA based on a novel strategy to combine these two kinds of information. The Self-guided GA does not sample new solutions from the probabilistic model. Instead, it estimates the quality of a candidate offspring based on the probabilistic model used in its crossover and mutation operations. In such a way, the mutation and crossover operations are able to generate fitter solutions, thus improving the performance of the algorithm. We tested the proposed algorithm by applying it to deal with the NP-complete flowshop scheduling problem to minimize the makespan. The experimental results show that the Self-guided GA is very promising. We also demonstrate that the Self-guided GA can be easily extended to treat other intractable combinatorial problems.     

求解置换流水车间调度问题的混合鸟群算法

针对置换流水车间调度问题（PFSP）,提出了一种混合鸟群算法（HBSA）以更加有效地最小化最大完工时间。首先,为了改善初始种群的质量和多样性,结合一种基于NEH（Nawaz-Enscore-Ham）的启发式算法和混沌映射提出了一种新的种群初始化方法;其次,为了使算法能够处理离散的调度问题,采用最大排序值（LRV）规则将连续的位置值转换为离散的工件排序;最后,为了强化算法对解空间的探索能力,借鉴变邻域搜索（VNS）和迭代贪婪（IG）算法的思想针对个体最佳工件排序和种群最佳工件排序分别提出了局部搜索方法。针对广泛使用的Rec标准测试集进行了仿真测试,并与目前有效的元启发式算法——刘等提出的混合差分进化算法（L-HDE）、混合共生生物搜索算法（HSOS）、离散狼群算法（DWPA）、多班级教学优化算法（MCTLBO）相比较,结果表明,HBSA取得的最佳相对误差（BRE）、平均相对误差（ARE）的平均值比上述四种算法至少下降了73.3%、76.8%,从而证明HBSA具有更强的寻优能力和更好的稳定性。尤其是针对测试算例Rec25和Rec27,仅HBSA的求解结果达到了目前已知最优解,进一步证明了其优越性。     

An estimation of distribution algorithm for minimizing the total flowtime in permutation flowshop scheduling problems

In this work we propose an estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) as a new tool aiming at minimizing the total flowtime in permutation flowshop scheduling problems. A variable neighbourhood search is added to the algorithm as an improvement procedure after creating a new offspring. The experiments show that our approach outperforms all existing techniques employed for the problem and can provide new upper bounds.     

基于分布估计算法的二阶段置换流水车间调度算法*

针对以完工时间最小化为目标的置换流水车间调度问题（PFSP）,提出了一种基于分布估计算法的二阶段置换流水车间调度算法。首先,在算法的第一阶段采用分布估计算法对PFSP进行优化得到一个局部最优解;为了进一步提高解的优化质量,在第二阶段提出了一种新的混合邻域搜索机制对第一阶段获得的局优解进行邻域搜索;最后,对Rec类和Tai类基准测试问题进行了测试,实验结果证实了算法的有效性。     

改进的粒子群算法求解置换流水车间调度问题

针对置换流水车间调度问题,提出了一种改进的粒子群算法进行求解。改进算法引入了判断粒子群早熟的方法,并在发现粒子群早熟后采用逆转策略对种群最优粒子进行变异,利用模拟退火思想概率接收新的最优粒子。种群最优粒子的改变会引导粒子群跳出局部极值的约束,从而克服粒子群的早熟状态。通过对置换流水车间调度问题中Car系列和Rec系列部分基准数据的测试,证明了该算法的有效性。     

An iterated local search for the multi-objective permutation flowshop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times

Due to its simplicity yet powerful search ability, iterated local search (ILS) has been widely used to tackle a variety of single-objective combinatorial optimization problems. However, applying ILS to solve multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems is scanty. In this paper we design a multi-objective ILS (MOILS) to solve the multi-objective permutation flowshop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times to minimize the makespan and total weighted tardiness of all jobs. In the MOILS, we design a Pareto-based variable depth search in the multi-objective local search phase. The search depth is dynamically adjusted during the search process of the MOILS to strike a balance between exploration and exploitation. We incorporate an external archive into the MOILS to store the non-dominated solutions and provide initial search points for the MOILS to escape from local optima traps. We compare the MOILS with several multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) shown to be effective for treating the multi-objective permutation flowshop scheduling problem in the literature. The computational results show that the proposed MOILS outperforms the MOEAs.     

变量块内部迭代算法求解零空闲流水车间问题

零空闲流水车间问题（NIFSP）是流水车间问题中带有约束条件的典型NP-hard问题,在大多数现实场景下,零空闲约束是对机器的基本要求。而目前关于NIFSP问题提出的算法对于较大规模算例、综合性能及参数调整的灵活性较差。为此,以最小化最大完工时间为目标,提出了一种可变内部迭代算法VIIA。在VIIA的初始化阶段,使用改进的FRB5产生初始解,提高了FRB5的效率,在保证算法性能的同时极大地缩短了CPU消耗时间。在破坏重建阶段,通过增加对移除工件块数量的内部迭代,从而灵活调整参数值。VIIA增大了邻域搜索,以适应不同规模的算例。为了验证VIIA算法的性能,将该算法与在流水车间调度问题中表现优秀的几种算法进行了比较。实验结果证明了VIIA在NIFSP问题求解上性能的优越性,并且在最优解的搜索上,性能明显优于对比算法。     

Order acceptance and scheduling to maximize total net revenue in permutation flowshops with weighted tardiness

The order acceptance and scheduling (OAS) problem is important in make-to-order production systems in which production capacity is limited and order delivery requirements are applied. This study proposes a multi-initiator simulated annealing (MSA) algorithm to maximize the total net revenue for the permutation flowshop scheduling problem with order acceptance and weighted tardiness. To evaluate the performance of the proposed MSA algorithm, computational experiments are performed and compared for a benchmark problem set of test instances with up to 500 orders. Experimental results reveal that the proposed heuristic outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithm and obtains the best solutions in 140 out of 160 benchmark instances.     

一种快速解决PFSP问题的混合遗传算法

流水车间调度问题属于NP难问题,并且和实际问题联系很紧。但是因为它的解空间太大,一般的算法很容易过早的陷入局部最优或者计算时间太长,提出了一种比较快速的混合遗传算法,能够在很短时间内计算出比较优的结果。详细介绍了这种算法的效果,并与两种常用来解决此类问题的算法进行了比较,总结出了这个算法的特点。     

A machine-learning based memetic algorithm for the multi-objective permutation flowshop scheduling problem

In recent years, the historical data during the search process of evolutionary algorithms has received increasing attention from many researchers, and some hybrid evolutionary algorithms with machine-learning have been proposed. However, the majority of the literature is centered on continuous problems with a single optimization objective. There are still a lot of problems to be handled for multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems. Therefore, this paper proposes a machine-learning based multi-objective memetic algorithm (ML-MOMA) for the discrete permutation flowshop scheduling problem. There are two main features in the proposed ML-MOMA. First, each solution is assigned with an individual archive to store the non-dominated solutions found by it and based on these individual archives a new population update method is presented. Second, an adaptive multi-objective local search is developed, in which the analysis of historical data accumulated during the search process is used to adaptively determine which non-dominated solutions should be selected for local search and how the local search should be applied. Computational results based on benchmark problems show that the cooperation of the above two features can help to achieve a balance between evolutionary global search and local search. In addition, many of the best known Pareto fronts for these benchmark problems in the literature can be improved by the proposed ML-MOMA.     

Reduction of permutation flowshop problems to single machine problems using machine dominance relations

The Permutation Flowshop Scheduling Problem with Makespan objective (PFSP-M) is known to be NP-hard for more than two machines, and literally hundreds of works in the last decades have proposed exact and approximate algorithms to solve it. These works—of computational/experimental nature—show that the PFSP-M is also empirically hard, in the sense that optimal or quasi-optimal sequences statistically represent a very small fraction of the space of feasible solutions, and that there are big differences among the corresponding makespan values. In the vast majority of these works, it has been assumed that (a) processing times are not job- and/or machine-correlated, and (b) all machines are initially available. However, some works have found that the problem turns to be almost trivial (i.e. almost every sequence yields an optimal or quasi-optimal solution) if one of these assumptions is dropped. To the best of our knowledge, no theoretical or experimental explanation has been proposed by this rather peculiar fact.Our hypothesis is that, under certain conditions of machine availability, or correlated processing times, the performance of a given sequence in a flowshop is largely determined by only one stage, thus effectively transforming the flowshop layout into a single machine. Since the single machine scheduling problem with makespan objective is a trivial problem where all feasible sequences are optimal, it would follow that, under these conditions, the equivalent PFSP-M is almost trivial. To address this working hypothesis from a general perspective, we investigate some conditions that allow reducing a permutation flowshop scheduling problem to a single machine scheduling problem, focusing on the two most common objectives in the literature, namely makespan and flowtime. Our work is a combination of theoretical and computational analysis, therefore several properties are derived to prove the conditions for an exact (theoretical) equivalence, together with an extensive computational evaluation to establish an empirical equivalence.     

基于TSP方法求解等待时间受限的置换流水车间调度

等待时间受限的置换流水车间调度问题要求工件在连续两个机器间的等待时间满足上限值约束.对此,分析了工件序列中相邻工件的加工持续时间及其上下界关系,并且提出一种启发式方法.首先,建立旅行商间题（TSP）以生成初始调度;然后,采用扩展插入方法优化调度解.为了衡量算法性能,给出问题下界的计算方法和相关评价指标,并通过数据实验验证了该启发式和下界计算方法的可行性和有效性.