Title: A hybrid algorithm to solve the stochastic flow shop scheduling problems with machine break down

Authors: M.K. Marichelvam; M. Geetha

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mepco Schlenk Engineering College, Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, 626005, India ' Department of Mathematics, Kamaraj College of Engineering and Technology, Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu, 626001, India

Abstract: A flow shop scheduling problem with uncertain processing times and machine break down is considered in this paper. The objective is to minimise the maximum completion time (makespan). As the problem is non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard), a hybrid algorithm (HA) is proposed to solve the problem. The firefly algorithm (FA) is hybridised with the variable neighbourhood search (VNS) algorithm in the proposed HA. Extensive computational experiments are carried out with random problem instances to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: scheduling; NP-hard; flow shop; makespan; firefly algorithm; variable neighbourhood search; VNS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJENM.2019.100544

International Journal of Enterprise Network Management, 2019 Vol.10 No.2, pp.162 - 175

Received: 21 Apr 2018
Accepted: 24 Feb 2019

Published online: 29 Jun 2019 *

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