Title: A heuristic algorithm to minimise the total flowtime of jobs in permutation flowshops

Authors: J. Krishnaraj; S. Pugazhendhi; Chandrasekharan Rajendran; S. Thiagarajan

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Krishnasamy College of Engineering and Technology, Cuddalore 607 109, Tamilnadu, India ' Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar 608 002, Tamilnadu, India ' Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600 036, Tamilnadu, India ' Sasurie Academy of Engineering, Coimbatore 641 653, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: A heuristic algorithm with six implementations (HA-I to HA-VI) is presented in this paper, and it is used to solve the permutation flowshop scheduling problem to minimise the total flowtime of jobs. These implementations have been evaluated by using the 90 benchmark flowshop scheduling problem instances, and the solutions yielded are compared with the solutions reported in the literature. The comparison shows that the implementations all together have produced better solutions for 28 problem instances and same solutions for 29 problem instances, out of 90 problem instances considered with respect to the solutions by Iterated Local Search algorithm proposed by Dong et al. (2009). They have also produced better solutions for 50 problem instances and the same solutions for 19 problem instances, out of 90 problem instances considered with respect to the solutions by PSOvns algorithm proposed by Tasgetiren et al. (2007), as reported in Dong et al. (2009).

Keywords: flowshop scheduling; permutation flowshops; total flowtime; heuristic algorithms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2014.063967

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2014 Vol.17 No.4, pp.511 - 532

Published online: 30 Aug 2014 *

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