Mathematical models and a hunting search algorithm for the no-wait flowshop scheduling with parallel machines

Majority of researches in no-wait flowshop scheduling assume that there is only one machine at each stage. But, factories commonly duplicate machines in parallel for each operation. In this case, they balance the speed of the stages, increase the throughput of the shop floor and reduce the impact of bottleneck stages. Despite their importance, there is no paper to study the general no-wait flowshop with parallel machines. This paper studies this problem where the objective is to minimise makespan. Since there is no mathematical model for the problem, we first mathematically formulate it in form of two mixed integer linear programming models. By the models, the small instances are optimally solved. We then propose a novel hunting search metaheuristic algorithm (HSA) to solve large instances of the problem. HSA is derived based on a model of group hunting of animals when searching for food. A set of experimental instances are carried out to evaluate the algorithm. The algorithm is carefully evaluated for its performance against an available algorithm by means of statistical tools. The related results show that the proposed HSA provides sound performance comparing with other algorithms.     

An improved method for the hot strip mill production scheduling problem

In most research on the hot strip mill production scheduling problem (HSMPSP) arising in the steel industry, it is accepted that a schedule with lower penalty caused by jumps of width, hardness, and gauge will result in lower roller wear, so it is regarded as a better schedule. However, based on the analysis of production processes, it is realised that rolling each coil also cause roller wear. In order to assessing the roller wear associated with production scheduling more precisely, it is necessary to consider it as another factor besides those jumps, especially when complicated constraints are involved. In this paper, an improved method is proposed to quantify the expected wear of the rollers done by those jumps and rolling processes. Then the HSMPSP whose objective is to maximise the total length of all scheduled coils is formulated as a team orienteering problem with time windows and additional production constraints. A heuristic method combining an improved Ant Colony Extended algorithm with local search procedures dedicated to HSMPSP is developed. Finally, computational results on instances generated based on production data from an integrated steel mill in China indicate that the proposed algorithm is a promising solution specific to HSMPSP.     

An electromagnetism-like mechanism for the single machine total stepwise tardiness problem with release dates

In recent years, a new type of tardiness cost, called stepwise tardiness, has received attention. To the authors’ knowledge, only a few studies have investigated this type of tardiness in the scheduling problem. This study considered the single machine total stepwise tardiness problem with release dates, which is strongly NP hard. Because of the essential complexity of the problem, heuristics were first developed to quickly generate initial solutions. Subsequently, a new electromagnetism-like mechanism (EM), which is a novel metaheuristic, was proposed to improve the solution quality. The new EM includes a natural encoding scheme, a new distance measure between solutions, and effective attraction and repulsion operators. Comparisons with a current EM and other metaheuristics were performed to verify the proposed EM. The computational results show that the proposed EM exhibits good performance for the considered problem.     

Distributed parallel algorithms for online virtual network embedding applications

Network virtualization (NV) has ubiquitously emerged as an indispensable attribute to enable the success of the forthcoming virtualized networks (eg, 5G network and smart Internet of Things [IoT]). Virtual network embedding (VNE) is the major challenge in NV that allows multiple heterogeneous virtual networks (VNs) to simultaneously coexist on a shared substrate infrastructure. A great number of VNE algorithms have been proposed, but over the past decades, most of them are only targeting for VNE node mapping. In this paper, we propose two distributed parallel genetic algorithms, which are based on two versions of crossover and mutation schemes, for online VN link embedding problems with low latency and high efficiency. Furthermore, we conduct a time analysis on the executing time of independently distributed parallel computing machines in details. This comprehensive analysis validates the parallel computing scalability on an identical number of predefined parallel machines. Extensive simulations have shown that our proposed algorithms can achieve better performance than integer linear programming (ILP)–based solutions while meeting the stringent time requirements for online VN embedding applications. Our proposed algorithms yield superior performance in running time with 32.78% up to 1727.8% faster than existing popular VNE algorithms. Additionally, the theoretical analysis indicates that the execution time can be reduced to logarithmic times by applying proposed distributed parallel algorithms.     

Estimation of optimum design of structural systems via machine learning

Three different structural engineering designs were investigated to determine optimum design variables, and then to estimate design parameters and the main objective function of designs directly, speedily, and effectively. Two different optimization operations were carried out: One used the harmony search (HS) algorithm, combining different ranges of both HS parameters and iteration with population numbers. The other used an estimation application that was done via artificial neural networks (ANN) to find out the estimated values of parameters. To explore the estimation success of ANN models, different test cases were proposed for the three structural designs. Outcomes of the study suggest that ANN estimation for structures is an effective, successful, and speedy tool to forecast and determine the real optimum results for any design model.     

Data-Driven Heuristic Assisted Memetic Algorithm for Efficient Inter-Satellite Link Scheduling in the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

Inter-satellite link (ISL) scheduling is required by the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) to guarantee the system ranging and communication performance. In the BDS, a great number of ISL scheduling instances must be addressed every day, which will certainly spend a lot of time via normal metaheuristics and hardly meet the quick-response requirements that often occur in real-world applications. To address the dual requirements of normal and quick-response ISL schedulings, a data-driven heuristic assisted memetic algorithm (DHMA) is proposed in this paper, which includes a high-performance memetic algorithm (MA) and a data-driven heuristic. In normal situations, the high-performance MA that hybridizes parallelism, competition, and evolution strategies is performed for high-quality ISL scheduling solutions over time. When in quick-response situations, the data-driven heuristic is performed to quickly schedule high-probability ISLs according to a prediction model, which is trained from the high-quality MA solutions. The main idea of the DHMA is to address normal and quick-response schedulings separately, while high-quality normal scheduling data are trained for quick-response use. In addition, this paper also presents an easy-to-understand ISL scheduling model and its NP-completeness. A seven-day experimental study with 10 080 one-minute ISL scheduling instances shows the efficient performance of the DHMA in addressing the ISL scheduling in normal (in 84 hours) and quick-response (in 0.62 hour) situations, which can well meet the dual scheduling requirements in real-world BDS applications.      

多目标同顺序流水作业的局部搜索算法

针对求解最小化最大完工时间和总流程时间的多目标同顺序流水作业问题,提出了一个多目标局部搜索算法。针对两个目标,用现有的构造性算法生成两个解,作为该算法的初始解,然后从这两个初始解出发,以贪婪的方式求出新的Pareto最优解集,持续改进Pareto前沿。选择新的Pareto解的条件是该解既不被原解支配,也不被产生原解的解所支配,同时对某个目标改进最大。当所有解都陷入局部极小时,扰动已得到的Pareto解集,然后从扰动后的解集出发重新搜索。初始解和选择新的Pareto解的方法对算法性能有显著的影响。在基准问题上,与已有文献中的算法比较,结果表明所提算法的总体性能更优,特别是对较大规模的问题,此差异更具有显著性。     

An ACO hybrid metaheuristic for close–open vehicle routing problems with time windows and fuzzy constraints

The close–open vehicle routing problem is a realistic variant of the “classical” vehicle routing problem where the routes can be opened and closed, i.e. all the vehicles are not required to return to the depot after completing their service. This variant is a planning model that is a standard practice in business nowadays. Companies are contracting their deliveries to other companies that hire vehicles, and payment is made based on the distance covered by the vehicles. Available information on parameters in real world situations is also imprecise, and must be included in the optimization model and method. The aims of this paper are to formulate a model of this novel variant with time windows and imprecise constraints and to propose a fuzzy optimization approach and a hybrid metaheuristic for its solutions. The full proposal is applied to a real route planning problem with outsourcing, obtaining promising practical results. Customer demands and travel times are imprecise, thus capacity and time windows constraints are considered flexible and modelled as fuzzy constraints.     

A heuristic-based hybrid genetic-variable neighborhood search algorithm for task scheduling in heterogeneous multiprocessor system

Effective task scheduling, which is essential for achieving high performance in a heterogeneous multiprocessor system, remains a challenging problem despite extensive studies. In this article, a heuristic-based hybrid genetic-variable neighborhood search algorithm is proposed for the minimization of makespan in the heterogeneous multiprocessor scheduling problem. The proposed algorithm distinguishes itself from many existing genetic algorithm (GA) approaches in three aspects. First, it incorporates GA with the variable neighborhood search (VNS) algorithm, a local search metaheuristic, to exploit the intrinsic structure of the solutions for guiding the exploration process of GA. Second, two novel neighborhood structures are proposed, in which problem-specific knowledge concerned with load balancing and communication reduction is utilized respectively, to improve both the search quality and efficiency of VNS. Third, the proposed algorithm restricts the use of GA to evolve the task-processor mapping solutions, while taking advantage of an upward-ranking heuristic mostly used by traditional list scheduling approaches to determine the task sequence assignment in each processor. Empirical results on benchmark task graphs of several well-known parallel applications, which have been validated by the use of non-parametric statistical tests, show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms several related algorithms in terms of the schedule quality. Further experiments are carried out to reveal that the proposed algorithm is able to maintain high performance within a wide range of parameter settings.     

Multiobjective virtual machine placement mechanisms using nature‐inspired metaheuristic algorithms in cloud environments: A comprehensive review

Cloud computing introduced a new paradigm in IT industry by providing on‐demand, elastic, ubiquitous computing resources for users. In a virtualized cloud data center, there are a large number of physical machines (PMs) hosting different types of virtual machines (VMs). Unfortunately, the cloud data centers do not fully utilize their computing resources and cause a considerable amount of energy waste that has a great operational cost and dramatic impact on the environment. Server consolidation is one of the techniques that provide efficient use of physical resources by reducing the number of active servers. Since VM placement plays an important role in server consolidation, one of the main challenges in cloud data centers is an efficient mapping of VMs to PMs. Multiobjective VM placement is generating considerable interest among researchers and academia. This paper aims to represent a detailed review of the recent state‐of‐the‐art multiobjective VM placement mechanisms using nature‐inspired metaheuristic algorithms in cloud environments. Also, it gives special attention to the parameters and approaches used for placing VMs into PMs. In the end, we will discuss and explore further works that can be done in this area of research.