Modeling and Optimization of Cost-Based Hybrid Flow Shop Scheduling Problem using Metaheuristics

Abstract

The cost-based hybrid flow shop (CHFS) scheduling has been immensely studied due to its huge impact on productivity. For any profit-oriented organization, it is important to optimize total production costs. However, few researchers have studied hybrid flow shops (HFS) with total production cost utilization. This paper aims to develop a computational model and test the exploration capability of metaheuristics algorithms while optimizing the CHFS problem. Carlier and Neron defined three hypothetical benchmark problems for computational experiments. The popular optimization algorithms PSO, GA, and ACO were implemented on the CHFS model with ten optimization runs. The experimental results proven that ACO performed well regarding mean fitness value for all benchmark problems. Besides this, CPU time for PSO was very high compared to other algorithms. In the future, other optimization algorithms will be tested for the CHFS model, such as Teaching Learning Based Optimization (TLBO) and the Crayfish Optimization Algorithm (COA).