Minimizing makespan in a batch-processing machine flow shop

Abstract

This paper aims at minimizing the makespan on a permutation flowshop batch processing machines (FMBPM). The processing times and the sizes of the jobs are known and non-identical. In FMBPM environment a machine can simultaneously process several jobs as long as the total sizes of jobs in a batch do not exceed the machine capacity. The processing time of a batch on each machine is the longest processing time of all jobs in the batch. In this problem not only the sequence of jobs should be determined but also the formation of batches is considered as a new variable. The problem under investigation is NP-hard for makespan as objective. Consequently, a genetic algorithm and a simulated annealing algorithm are developed solution approach. In order to prove the efficiency and effectiveness of our algorithms, the Random test problems were generated and performance of the suggested algorithms is compared with some existing methods. The computational results show its good performance on FMBPM scheduling. © 2015 AENSI Publisher All rights reserved.