Title: Multi-objective job shop scheduling problem with sequence dependent setup times using a novel metaheuristic

Authors: Majid Khalili; Bahman Naderi

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, P.O. Box: 31485 – 313, Moazen Blvd., Rajaee Shahr Street, Karaj, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Kharazmi, Hesarak Square, Karaj, Iran

Abstract: The job shop problem is the most complicated and typical problem of all kinds of production scheduling problems, the allocation of resources over time to perform a collection of tasks. This paper studies multi-objective job shop scheduling problems where the setup times is sequence dependent to minimise two objective functions simultaneously. Since the problem is NP-hard and difficult to find an optimal solution in a reasonable computational time an efficient multi-objective electromagnetism algorithm (MOEA) is presented as the solution procedure. An electromagnetism algorithm is known as a flexible and effective population-based algorithm utilising an attraction/repulsion mechanism to move the particles towards optimality. The algorithm is carefully evaluated for its performance against two available algorithms by means of multi-objective performance measures and statistical tools. All the results demonstrate that our MOEA is very effective for the problem.

Keywords: makespan; total tardiness; multi-objective electromagnetism algorithm; MOEA; job shop scheduling; JSS; sequence dependent setup times; SDST; metaheuristics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIEI.2014.067146

International Journal of Intelligent Engineering Informatics, 2014 Vol.2 No.4, pp.243 - 258

Accepted: 13 Sep 2013
Published online: 07 Feb 2015 *

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