Coevolutionary makespan optimisation through different ranking methods for the fuzzy flexible job shop

In this paper we tackle a variant of the flexible job shop scheduling problem with uncertain task durations modelled as fuzzy numbers, the fuzzy flexible job shop scheduling problem or FfJSP in short. To minimise the schedule's fuzzy makespan, we consider different ranking methods for fuzzy numbers. We then propose a cooperative coevolutionary algorithm with two different populations evolving the two components of a solution: machine assignment and task relative order. Additionally, we incorporate a specific local search method for each population. The resulting hybrid algorithm is then evaluated on existing benchmark instances, comparing favourably with the state-of-the-art methods. The experimental results also serve to analyse the influence in the robustness of the resulting schedules of the chosen ranking method. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.