Effective heuristics for the blocking flowshop scheduling problem with makespan minimization

Quan-Ke Pan and Ling Wang

Omega, 2012, vol. 40, issue 2, 218-229

Abstract: The blocking flowshop scheduling problem with makespan criterion has important applications in a variety of industrial systems. Heuristics that explore specific characteristics of the problem are essential for many practical systems to find good solutions with limited computational effort. This paper first presents two simple constructive heuristics, namely weighted profile fitting (wPF) and PW, based on the profile fitting (PF) approach of McCormick et al. [Sequencing in an assembly line with blocking to minimize cycle time. Operations Research 1989;37:925-36] and the characteristics of the problem. Then, three improved constructive heuristics, called PF-NEH, wPF-NEH, and PW-NEH, are proposed by combining the PF, wPF, and PW with the enumeration procedure of the Nawaz-Enscore-Ham (NEH) heuristic [A heuristic algorithm for the m-machine, n-job flow shop sequencing problem. OMEGA-International Journal of Management Science 1983;11:91-5] in an effective way. Thirdly, three composite heuristics i.e., PF-NEHLS, wPF-NEHLS, and PW-NEHLS, are developed by using the insertion-based local search method to improve the solutions generated by the constructive heuristics. Computational simulations and comparisons are carried out based on the well-known flowshop benchmarks of Taillard [Benchmarks for basic scheduling problems. European Journal of Operation Research 1993;64:278-85] that are considered as blocking flowshop instances. The results show that the presented constructive heuristics perform significantly better than the existing ones, and the proposed composite heuristics further improve the presented constructive heuristics by a considerable margin. In addition, 17 new best-known solutions for Taillard benchmarks with large scale are found by the presented heuristics.

Keywords: Flowshop; Blocking; Makespan; Constructive; heuristics; Composite; heuristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305048311000971
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jomega:v:40:y:2012:i:2:p:218-229

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Omega is currently edited by B. Lev

More articles in Omega from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().