The cellular automata algorithm is one of the most important developments recently and is becoming an area of great potential in scheduling problems. There has been an increase in the quality and quantity of publications related to this topic. To formally illustrate the research status of the cellular automata algorithm at the global level, bibliometric analysis was used based on the Web of Science and Scopus databases, and 3086 documents were retrieved from different countries and regions. Institutions, journals, authors, research areas, author keywords, and highly cited articles are discussed in detail. The results show that the USA and China are the dominant countries in this field. The USA is the most active country cooperating with other 47 countries or regions, especially with China. The Journal of Cellular Automata is the most productive journal in this field, and the Democritus University of Thrace is the most productive institution also with the highest h-index. “Computer Science” is the most investigated area, with 544 documents involved. In addition, the major topics focused by author keywords are “genetic algorithm,” “swarm intelligence,” and “evolutionary computation.” In addition, the cellular automata algorithm is viewed as a new and effective method to solve the scheduling problems in manufacturing system; meanwhile, historical developments of the application of cellular automata in scheduling are displayed and analyzed.

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