Pareto archive particle swarm optimization for multi-objective fuzzy job shop scheduling problems

This paper addresses multi-objective job shop scheduling problems with fuzzy processing time and due-date in such a way to provide the decision-maker with a group of Pareto optimal solutions. A new priority rule-based representation method is proposed and the problems are converted into continuous optimization ones to handle the problems by using particle swarm optimization. The conversion is implemented by constructing the corresponding relationship between real vector and the chromosome obtained with the new representation method. Pareto archive particle swarm optimization is proposed, in which the global best position selection is combined with the crowding measure-based archive maintenance, and the inclusion of mutation into the proposed algorithm is considered. The proposed algorithm is applied to eight benchmark problems for the following objectives: the minimum agreement index, the maximum fuzzy completion time and the mean fuzzy completion time. Computational results demonstrate that the proposal algorithm has a promising advantage in fuzzy job shop scheduling.