A branch and bound algorithm for an identical parallel machine scheduling problem with a job splitting property

We focus on the problem of scheduling n independent jobs on m identical parallel machines with the objective of minimizing total tardiness of the jobs considering a job splitting property. In this problem, it is assumed that a job can be split into sub-jobs and these sub-jobs can be processed independently on parallel machines. We develop several dominance properties and lower bounds for the problem, and suggest a branch and bound algorithm using them. Computational experiments are performed on randomly generated test problems and results show that the suggested algorithm solves problems of moderate sizes in a reasonable amount of computation time.     

A branch, bound, and remember algorithm for the 1|r i |∑t i scheduling problem

This paper presents a modified Branch and Bound (B&B) algorithm called, the Branch, Bound, and Remember (BB&R) algorithm, which uses the Distributed Best First Search (DBFS) exploration strategy for solving the 1|r _i |∑t _i scheduling problem, a single machine scheduling problem where the objective is to find a schedule with the minimum total tardiness. Memory-based dominance strategies are incorporated into the BB&R algorithm. In addition, a modified memory-based dynamic programming algorithm is also introduced to efficiently compute lower bounds for the 1|r _i |∑t _i scheduling problem. Computational results are reported, which shows that the BB&R algorithm with the DBFS exploration strategy outperforms the best known algorithms reported in the literature.     

A branch and bound method for the line balancing problem in U-shaped assembly lines with equipment requirements

In this study we consider a U-shaped assembly line balancing problem where each task uses a specified set of equipments and each type of equipment has a specified cost. Our problem is to assign the tasks together with their equipments to the workstations so as to minimize the total equipment cost. We formulate the problem as a mixed integer linear programming model that is capable of solving small sized instances. We propose a branch and bound algorithm that uses efficient precedence relations and lower bounds. We find that the algorithm is able to solve moderate sized problem instances in reasonable times.     

A theoretical development for the total tardiness problem and its application in branch and bound algorithms

This paper deals with the single machine total tardiness problem, and proves that if the job sequences produced by two heuristics, named as Time Forward and Time Backward algorithms, have the same starting and ending job subsequences, then there exists an optimal job sequence with the starting and ending job subsequences. The computation experiments show that there is a significant improvement of the running time of a branch and bound algorithm with the incorporation of the new property.     

Generating subproblems in branch and bound algorithms for parallel machines scheduling problem

A branch and bound algorithm (B&B) has been widely used in various discrete and combinatorial optimization fields. To obtain optimal solutions as soon as possible for scheduling problems, three tools, which are branching, bounding and dominance rules, have been developed in the B&B algorithm. One of these tools, a branching is a method for generating subproblems and directly determines size of solution to be searched in the B&B algorithm. Therefore, it is very important to devise effective branching scheme for the problem.In this note, a survey of branching schemes is performed for parallel machines scheduling (PMS) problems with n independent jobs and m machines and new branching schemes that can be used for identical and unrelated PMS problems, respectively, are suggested. The suggested branching methods show that numbers of generated subproblems are much smaller than that of other methods developed earlier and therefore, it is expected that they help to reduce a lot of CPU time required to obtain optimal solutions in the B&B algorithm.     

A branch and bound algorithm for the travelling salesman and the transportation routing problems

In this paper, a branch and bound model with penalty tour building is developed for solving travelling salesman and transportation routing problems. The algorithm for determining the optimal solution of the problem is of the general form which can solve symmetric and asymmetric single and multiple travelling salesman problems (STS and MTS), and the transportation routing problems with capacity restrictions for the vehicles of same or of different capacities. The behavior of the developed algorithm is tested with randomly generated data. As an application, the routes for gas distribution is planned and carried out in several interior towns of a state, with the objective of making an efficient distribution in order to minimize the total cost of delivery with an optimal solution.     

Extensions to the repetitive branch and bound algorithm for globally optimal clusterwise regression

A branch and bound strategy is proposed for solving the clusterwise regression problem, extending Brusco's repetitive branch and bound algorithm (RBBA). The resulting strategy relies upon iterative heuristic optimization, new ways of observation sequencing, and branch and bound optimization of a limited number of ending subsets. These three key features lead to significantly faster optimization of the complete set and the strategy has more general applications than only for clusterwise regression. Additionally, an efficient implementation of incremental calculations within the branch and bound search algorithm eliminates most of the redundant ones. Experiments using both real and synthetic data compare the various features of the proposed optimization algorithm and contrasts them against a benchmark mixed logical-quadratic programming formulation optimized by CPLEX. The results indicate that all components of the proposed algorithm provide significant improvements in processing times, and, when combined, generally provide the best performance, significantly outperforming CPLEX.     

An efficient branch and bound algorithm for assembly line balancing problems with parallel multi-manned workstations

In the event that big-sized complex products (containing a large number of assembly tasks most of which have long task times) are produced in simple or two-sided assembly lines, hundreds of stations are essentially required. Long product flow time, a large area for establishment of the line, a high budget for the investment of equipment, and tools in stations and several work-in-process are also required for these kinds of products. In order to avoid these disadvantages, assembly lines with parallel multi-manned workstations can be utilized. In this paper, these lines and one of their balancing problems are addressed, and a branch and bound algorithm is proposed. The algorithm is composed of a branching scheme, some efficient dominance and feasibility criteria based on a problem-specific knowledge. A heuristic-based guidance for enumeration process is included as an efficient component of the algorithm as well. VWSolver algorithm proposed for a special version of the problem in the literature has been modified and compared with the proposed algorithm. Results show that proposed algorithm outperforms VWSolver in terms of both CPU times and quality of feasible solutions found.     

一种求解车间作业调度问题的免疫算法

人工免疫系统是基于生物免疫系统特性而发展的新兴智能系统。基于免疫系统的克隆选择机制,提出一种求解车间作业调度问题的免疫算法。利用免疫算法较强的搜索能力可以实现全局寻优。通过使用克隆、高频变异和抗体抑制等免疫操作,提高了算法的收敛速度和种群的多样性,可以有效地克服遗传算法种群早熟化和收敛速度慢的问题。仿真结果表明,与改进后的遗传算法比较,提出的免疫算法在全局最优解和收敛速度上都有较为明显的优势。     

A branch and bound enhanced genetic algorithm for scheduling a flowline manufacturing cell with sequence dependent family setup times

This paper addresses the permutation flowline manufacturing cell with sequence dependent family setup times problem with the objective to minimize the makespan criterion. We develop a cooperative approach including a genetic algorithm and a branch and bound procedure. The latter is probabilistically integrated in the genetic algorithm in order to enhance the current solution. Moreover, the application of the branch and bound algorithm is based upon the decomposition of the problem into subproblems. The performance of the proposed method is tested by numerical experiments on a large number of representative problems.     

Two-phase branch and bound algorithm for robotic cells rescheduling considering limited disturbance

This paper addresses a robotic cell rescheduling problem and focuses on trade-off between the total completion time of all jobs and the disturbance of a reschedule. We first define and measure the disturbance of a reschedule as the deviation of completion time of the jobs already scheduled between the reschedule and the initial schedule. To guarantee the steady performance of the system, we consider a special case that the processing sequence of the jobs already scheduled cannot be changed. The addressed rescheduling problem is transformed into a series of deterministic local scheduling problems with the objective of minimizing the total completion time of all jobs provided that the disturbance is within a given limit. A two-phase branch and bound algorithm is developed to efficiently solve the local scheduling problems. To improve the efficiency of the search procedure, a dynamic enumeration mechanism is applied to eliminate redundant constraints. Furthermore, two search strategies are proposed to direct the search procedure toward finding an optimal solution and a near-optimal solution. Finally, computational results demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithm.     

A parallel hybrid greedy branch and bound scheme for the maximum distance-2 matching problem

We present a new highly parallel algorithm for fast determination of near-optimal solutions to the NP-hard problem of identifying a maximum distance-2 matching in arbitrary graphs. This problem, known as D2EMIS, has important applications such as determining the maximum capacity of the media access (MAC) layer in wireless ad-hoc networks [1]. It can also be seen as a maximum 2-packing problem [2] on the edge-to-vertex dual graph of the original graph. Our algorithm extends the GRASP [3] philosophy in that partial solutions are constructed by adding in a greedy adaptive manner the “best” nodes that can be found; however, when there are multiple alternatives that can be selected in an iteration, the algorithm branches into as many paths as there are (greedy) alternatives. The algorithm, using appropriate bounds to prune partial solutions that cannot be optimal, produces very fast near-optimal solutions that compare very well against other distributed algorithms and random greedy heuristics proposed before or variants thereof, or exact methods (Integer Programming or Maximum Satisfiability state-of-the-art solvers).     

A hybrid algorithm for the cyclic hoist scheduling problem with two transportation resources

In automated electroplating lines, computer-controlled hoists are used to transfer parts from a processing resource to another one. Products are mounted into carriers and immersed sequentially in a series of tanks following a given sequence.     

柔性作业车间调度中的组合遗传优化研究

针对柔性作业车间调度问题,提出一种组合遗传算法。该算法在种群初始化、选择、交叉、变异各阶段,组合使用各种不同的策略。针对机器编码部分的交叉,提出一种基于工件的机器交叉算子,用以改进机器分配部分随机交叉引起的对父代优秀基因继承不足的缺陷。通过对典型算例的计算以及与其他文献的研究成果比较,证明该算法的优良性能。     

A branch and bound algorithm for minimizing total completion time on a single batch machine with incompatible job families and dynamic arrivals

In this paper, we consider a single batch machine scheduling problem with incompatible job families and dynamic job arrivals. The objective is to minimize the total completion time. This problem is known to be strongly NP-hard. We present several dominance properties and two types of lower bounds, which are incorporated to construct a basic branch and bound algorithm. Furthermore, according to the characteristics of dynamic job arrivals, a decomposed branch and bound algorithm is proposed to improve the efficiency. The proposed algorithms are tested on a large set of randomly generated problem instances.     

A fast estimation of distribution algorithm for dynamic fuzzy flexible job-shop scheduling problem

Due to the complicated circumstances in workshop, most of the conventional scheduling algorithms fail to meet the requirements of instantaneity, complexity, and dynamicity in job-shop scheduling problems. Compared with the static algorithms, dynamic scheduling algorithms can better fulfill the requirements in real situations. Considering that both flexibility and fuzzy processing time are common in reality, this paper focuses on the dynamic flexible job-shop scheduling problem with fuzzy processing time (DfFJSP). By adopting a series of transforming procedures, the original DfFJSP is simplified as a traditional static fuzzy flexible job-shop problem, which is more suitable to take advantage of the existing algorithms. In this paper, estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) is brought into address the post-transforming problem. An improved EDA is developed through making use of several elements omitted in original EDA, including the historical-optimal solution and the standardized solution vectors. The improved algorithm is named as fast estimation of distribution algorithm (fEDA) since it performs better in convergence speed and computation precision, compared with the original EDA. To sum up, the ingenious transformation and the effective fEDA algorithm provide an efficient and practical way to tackle the dynamic flexible fuzzy job-shop scheduling problem.     

A parametric branch and bound approach to suboptimal explicit hybrid MPC

In this article we present a parametric branch and bound algorithm for computation of optimal and suboptimal solutions to parametric mixed-integer quadratic programs and parametric mixed-integer linear programs. The algorithm returns an optimal or suboptimal parametric solution with the level of suboptimality requested by the user. An interesting application of the proposed parametric branch and bound procedure is suboptimal explicit MPC for hybrid systems, where the introduced user-defined suboptimality tolerance reduces the storage requirements and the online computational effort, or even enables the computation of a suboptimal MPC controller in cases where the computation of the optimal MPC controller would be intractable. Moreover, stability of the system in closed loop with the suboptimal controller can be guaranteed a priori.     

免疫克隆选择算法求解柔性生产调度问题

为减少计算复杂度,将具有解决复杂组合优化问题的免疫克隆选择算法应用于求解柔性生产调度问题.首先设计一种有效的抗原和抗体的数据结构,用抗原表示待调度的生产计划,抗体表示高效的柔性生产调度结果;然后着重设计了用于产生高效的柔性生产调度结果的克隆免疫算子;最后运用该模型对一个实际生产系统进行仿真调度决策,实验评估结果验证了算法的正确性和有效性.     

A branch and price algorithm for the SS/TDMA problem with cardinality constraint

In this paper, we consider a square n×n traffic matrix D   and a satellite having l≤n$l\le n$ receiving and transmitting antennas. Transmissions are allowed by interconnecting pairs of receiving–transmitting antennas, through an on-board switch. We also assume that no preemption of the communications is allowed, and that changing the configuration of the switch requires a negligible time. We ask for a set of switch configurations that minimizes the total time occurring for transmitting the entire traffic matrix. In the literature, an exact method has been already proposed for the SS/TDMA optimization problem without cardinality constraint (i.e. for instances having l=n), but only heuristics have been proposed for the general case. In this paper, from a known MILP formulation we derive an extended formulation, and we use a column generation method to obtain its LP-relaxation. We address the derived pricing problem through a polynomial time algorithm based on solvers for the k-cardinality assignment problem. We insert this lower bound method in a two-phase branch and price algorithm in order to obtain the optimal solutions. To compare our new exact method with the one proposed in literature to solve the SS/TDMA optimization problem without cardinality constraint, we extend this older method to consider the cardinality constraint. The final computational experiments, comparing our new method with other already known methods, show the efficiency of our algorithms.     

遗传算法与人工免疫算法对车间调度问题求解

针对求解job-shop调度问题中存在的易出现局部最优、效率低下的问题,提出了一种新算法。该算法 采用了一种评价种群过早收敛标准的方法,引进了新的加快遗传算法进化速度的交叉算子,最后设计了人工免 疫算法中疫苗的提取和接种方法,即基于加工机器的基因片断抽取疫苗方法和最后完工机器个体的接种方法。 通过实验证明该算法能够有效地解决易出现局部最优、效率低下等问题。