Title: Application of novel harmony search algorithm for solving hybrid flow shop scheduling problems to minimise makespan

Authors: M.K. Marichelvam; M. Geetha

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

Abstract: This paper addresses the multistage hybrid flow shop (HFS) scheduling problems, which are found in many industries. The HFS scheduling problems are known to be non-deterministic polynomial time hard (NP-hard) problems. The objective is to minimise the makespan. Due to the complexity of the problem, researchers developed many metaheuristics to solve the problem. In this paper, harmony search (HS) algorithm, a recently developed music-based metaheuristic is proposed to solve the problem. Computational experiments are conducted to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results proved that the HS algorithm outperforms many other algorithms addressed in the literature.

Keywords: hybrid flowshops; flowshop scheduling; HFS; NP-hard; makespan; metaheuristics; harmony search.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2016.077698

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2016 Vol.23 No.4, pp.467 - 481

Received: 24 Jul 2014
Accepted: 25 Oct 2014
Published online: 13 Jul 2016 *

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