A hybrid particle swarm optimization and simulated annealing algorithm for the job shop scheduling problem with transport resources

This work addresses a variant of the job shop scheduling problem in which jobs need to be transported to the machines processing their operations by a limited number of vehicles. Given that vehicles must deliver the jobs to the machines for processing and that machines need to finish processing the jobs before they can be transported, machine scheduling and vehicle scheduling are intertwined. A coordi-nated approach that solves these interrelated problems simultaneously improves the overall performance of the manufacturing system. In the current competitive business environment, and integrated approach is imperative as it boosts cost savings and on-time deliveries. Hence, the job shop scheduling problem with transport resources (JSPT) requires scheduling production operations and transport tasks simultane-ously. The JSPT is studied considering the minimization of two alternative performance metrics, namely: makespan and exit time. Optimal solutions are found by a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model. However, since integrated production and transportation scheduling is very complex, the MILP model can only handle small-sized problem instances. To find good quality solutions in reasonable com-putation times, we propose a hybrid particle swarm optimization and simulated annealing algorithm (PSOSA). Furthermore, we derive a fast lower bounding procedure that can be used to evaluate the perfor-mance of the heuristic solutions for larger instances. Extensive computational experiments are conducted on 73 benchmark instances, for each of the two performance metrics, to assess the efficacy and efficiency of the proposed PSOSA algorithm. These experiments show that the PSOSA outperforms state-of-the-art solution approaches and is very robust.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Automated summary

This work addresses the problem of job shop scheduling with transport resources, where jobs need to be transported to machines by a limited number of vehicles. A coordinated approach that considers both machine scheduling and vehicle scheduling simultaneously improves the overall performance of the manufacturing system. The proposed hybrid particle swarm optimization and simulated annealing algorithm (PSOSA) outperforms other solution approaches and is robust.