ACO-based Parallel Machine Scheduling Considering Both Setup Time and Run-based Preventive Maintenance with Reliability Constraints

Abstract

This paper studied the problem of parallel processing machine scheduling, taking both set up time and run-based preventive maintenance with reliability constraints into consideration. The objective is to minimize makespan. For this NP-hard problem, an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm is proposed. The node selecting probability equation is set based on characteristics of this problem. The objective value obtained by the proposed algorithm is compared to that of the classical LPT rule through numerical experiments. The experiment results imply that the proposed ACO algorithm has better performance than the LPT rule.