Title: A hybrid genetic algorithm for solving the joint batching and scheduling of a batch processor with earliness and tardiness penalties

Authors: Mohamed Ali Abdel-Fattah Mansour, Maged M. Dessouky

Addresses: Faculty of Engineering, Industrial Engineering Department, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Sharkia 44519, Egypt. ' Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 0193, USA

Abstract: In this article, we address the problem of minimising the total weighted earliness and tardiness penalties of a batch processor by integrating genetic algorithms and math programming for determining the allocation of the customer orders to production batches and scheduling the resulting batches. Each job has its own unique due date, and earliness and tardiness penalties. A genome representation is introduced for solving the scheduling problem and is evolved by a genetic algorithm while at each evolution, the genome score is evaluated by a mathematical program for determining the job size per batch and the formation of batches. The genetic algorithm|s performance is compared with solutions found by a non-linear integer math program solver and its linearised model proposed by Dessouky, Kijowski and Verma (1999) on a set of representative test problems. The developed hybrid genetic algorithm proves its capability and superiority to find good solutions for the problem under consideration and outperforms solutions from a commercial optimisation package, CPLEX.

Keywords: batch processing; batching; earliness; tardiness; genetic algorithms; scheduling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2010.030745

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2010 Vol.5 No.2, pp.143 - 158

Published online: 01 Jan 2010 *

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