Title: A hierarchical approach to schedule the two-machine flow shop problem with flexible periodic synchronised maintenance

Authors: Nahla Chabbah Sekma; Hatem Hadda

Addresses: Laboratoire de Recherche OASIS, Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis, Université de Tunis El Manar, BP 37, Le belvédère, Tunis 1002, Tunisia ' Laboratoire de Recherche OASIS, Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis, Université de Tunis El Manar, BP 37, Le belvédère, Tunis 1002, Tunisia

Abstract: This paper tackles the makespan minimisation for the well-known two-machine flow shop problem with flexible periodic maintenance activities on both machines. The maintenance starting dates are to be decided along with the job's sequence. We adopt a hierarchical approach in which we first decide the job's sequence and then the maintenance starting dates. We identify a dominance rule and a polynomial case, and construct an enhancement procedure. We develop and test several variants of Tabu search and simulated annealing metaheuristics. We also propose an adaptation of the well-known NEH heuristic. The experimental study shows the superiority of one of the variants of simulated annealing and the efficiency of the dominance rule. [Received: 15 July 2022; Accepted: 8 May 2023]

Keywords: flow shop scheduling; flexible maintenance; Tabu search; simulated annealing.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIE.2024.140743

European Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2024 Vol.18 No.5, pp.669 - 690

Received: 15 Jul 2022
Accepted: 08 May 2023
Published online: 02 Sep 2024 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article