A Hybrid Metaheuristic Approach for Minimizing the Total Flow Time in A Flow Shop Sequence Dependent Group Scheduling Problem

Abstract

Production processes in Cellular Manufacturing Systems (CMS) often involve groups of parts sharing the same technological requirements in terms of tooling and setup. The issue of scheduling such parts through a flow-shop production layout is known as the Flow-Shop Group Scheduling (FSGS) problem or, whether setup times are sequence-dependent, the Flow-Shop Sequence-Dependent Group Scheduling (FSDGS) problem. This paper addresses the FSDGS issue, proposing a hybrid metaheuristic procedure integrating features from Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Biased Random Sampling (BRS) search techniques with the aim of minimizing the total flow time, i.e., the sum of completion times of all jobs. A well-known benchmark of test cases, entailing problems with two, three, and six machines, is employed for both tuning the relevant parameters of the developed procedure and assessing its performances against two metaheuristic algorithms recently presented by literature. The obtained results and a properly arranged ANOVA analysis highlight the superiority of the proposed approach in tackling the scheduling problem under investigation.

Statistical Analysis and Data Envelopment Analysis to Improve the Efficiency of Manufacturing Process of Electrical Conductors

“…By an early control such as that proposed in [2], substantial improvements in the manufacture of electrical conductors and other products can be achieved. In the present project, it is very useful to compare the use of ANOVA in [3,4], to improve the proposed method of analysis. Through optimizing other variables such as those mentioned in [5,6] it is possible to generate substantial improvements that will be taken into account in future work in the optimization of manufacturing processes.…”

“…Based on [3], through the DOE, we made improvements in organic processes. In [4], developed the DOE, improved manufacturing tolerances in permanent magnet motors. Taking into consideration [5], applied the DOE in a spot welding process to identify the key parameters of the process, which influence the tensile strength of welded joints.…”

Solving Rescheduling Problems in Dynamic Permutation Flow Shop Environments with Multiple Objectives Using the Hybrid Dynamic Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic II Algorithm

“…To fairly compare all algorithms, the same stopping criterion was used. This criterion is defined from different approaches in the literature [64,[66][67][68][69][70]. Most of them use a maximum execution time as stopping criterion, estimated in relation to the size of the problem, which is defined by the number of jobs and machines that the system has available.…”

Modelling and Solving Rescheduling Problems in Dynamic Permutation Flow Shop Environments

“…In order to define the stopping criterion, we analysed different approaches from the literature [58,[70][71][72][73][74]. Most use a maximum execution time, calculated depending on the size of the problem that is defined by the number of jobs and machines that the system has available, as the stopping criterion.…”