An evolutionary approach for solving the job shop scheduling problem in a service industry

In this paper, an evolutionary-based approach based on the discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) algorithm is developed for finding the optimum schedule of a registration problem in a university. Minimizing the makespan, which is the total length of the schedule, in a real-world case study is considered as the target function. Since the selected case study has the characteristics of job shop scheduling problem (JSSP), it is categorized as a NP-hard problem which makes it difficult to be solved by conventional mathematical approaches in relatively short computation time

An evolutionary approach for solving the job shop scheduling problem in a service industry

In this paper, an evolutionary-based approach based on the discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) algorithm is developed for finding the optimum schedule of a registration problem in a university. Minimizing the makespan, which is the total length of the schedule, in a real-world case study is considered as the target function. Since the selected case study has the characteristics of job shop scheduling problem (JSSP), it is categorized as a NP-hard problem which makes it difficult to be solved by conventional mathematical approaches in relatively short computation time

Optimization Models and Algorithms for Spatial Scheduling

Spatial scheduling problems involve scheduling a set of activities or jobs that each require a certain amount of physical space in order to be carried out. In these problems space is a limited resource, and the job locations, orientations, and start times must be simultaneously determined. As a result, spatial scheduling problems are a particularly difficult class of scheduling problems. These problems are commonly encountered in diverse industries including shipbuilding, aircraft assembly, and supply chain management. Despite its importance, there is a relatively scarce amount of research in the area of spatial scheduling. In this dissertation, spatial scheduling problems are studied from a mathematical and algorithmic perspective. Optimization models based on integer programming are developed for several classes of spatial scheduling problems. While the majority of these models address problems having an objective of minimizing total tardiness, the models are shown to contain a core set of constraints that are common to most spatial scheduling problems. As a result, these constraints form the basis of the models given in this dissertation and many other spatial scheduling problems with different objectives as well. The complexity of these models is shown to be at least NP-complete, and spatial scheduling problems in general are shown to be NP-hard. A lower bound for the total tardiness objective is shown, and a polynomial-time algorithm for computing this lower bound is given. The computational complexity inherent to spatial scheduling generally prevents the use of optimization models to find solutions to larger, realistic problems in a reasonable time. Accordingly, two classes of approximation algorithms were developed: greedy heuristics for finding fast, feasible solutions; and hybrid meta-heuristic algorithms to search for near-optimal solutions. A flexible hybrid algorithm framework was developed, and a number of hybrid algorithms were devised from this framework that employ local search and several varieties of simulated annealing. Extensive computational experiments showed these hybrid meta-heuristic algorithms to be effective in finding high-quality solutions over a wide variety of problems. Hybrid algorithms based on local search generally provided both the best-quality solutions and the greatest consistency

A memetic algorithm for minimizing the makespan in the Job Shop Scheduling problem

The Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSP) is a combinatorial optimization problem cataloged as type NP-Hard. To solve this problem, several heuristics and metaheuristics have been used. In order to minimize the makespan, we propose a Memetic Algorithm (MA), which combines the exploration of the search space by a Genetic Algorithm (GA), and the exploitation of the solutions using a local search based on the neighborhood structure of Nowicki and Smutnicki. The genetic strategy uses an operation-based representation that allows generating feasible schedules, and a selection probability of the best individuals that are crossed using the JOX operator. The results of the implementation show that the algorithm is competitive with other approaches proposed in the literature

Evolutionary algorithms for scheduling operations

While business process automation is proliferating through industries and processes, operations such as job and crew scheduling are still performed manually in the majority of workplaces. The linear programming techniques are not capable of automated production of a job or crew schedule within a reasonable computation time due to the massive sizes of real-life scheduling problems. For this reason, AI solutions are becoming increasingly popular, specifically Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs). However, there are three key limitations of previous studies researching application of EAs for the solution of the scheduling problems. First of all, there is no justification for the selection of a particular genetic operator and conclusion about their effectiveness. Secondly, the practical efficiency of such algorithms is unknown due to the lack of comparison with manually produced schedules. Finally, the implications of real-life implementation of the algorithm are rarely considered. This research aims at addressing all three limitations. Collaborations with DBSchenker,the rail freight carrier, and Garnett-Dickinson, the printing company,have been established. Multi-disciplinary research methods including document analysis, focus group evaluations, and interviews with managers from different levels have been carried out. A standard EA has been enhanced with developed within research intelligent operators to efficiently solve the problems. Assessment of the developed algorithm in the context of real life crew scheduling problem showed that the automated schedule outperformed the manual one by 3.7% in terms of its operating efficiency. In addition, the automatically produced schedule required less staff to complete all the jobs and might provide an additional revenue opportunity of £500 000. The research has also revealed a positive attitude expressed by the operational and IT managers towards the developed system. Investment analysis demonstrated a 41% return rate on investment in the automated scheduling system, while the strategic analysis suggests that this system can enable attainment of strategic priorities. The end users of the system, on the other hand, expressed some degree of scepticism and would prefer manual methods

Scheduling with Alternative Process Plans

Katedra řídicí technik

Cut generation based algorithms for unrelated parallel machine scheduling problems

Research on scheduling in the unrelated parallel machine environment is at best scarce. Moreover, almost all existing work in this area is focused on the minimization of completion time related performance measures and the solution approaches available in the literature suffer from scalability issues. In this dissertation, we leverage on the success of the mathematical programming based decomposition approaches and devise scalable, efficient, and effective cut generation based algorithms for four NP-hard unrelated parallel machine scheduling problems. In the first part,we develop a newpreemptive relaxation for the totalweighted tardiness and total weighted earliness/tardiness problems and devise a Benders decomposition algorithm for solving this preemptive relaxation formulated as a mixed integer linear program. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with instances up to 5 machines and 200 jobs The second part deals with the problem of minimizing the total weighted completion time and proves that the preemptive relaxation developed in part one is an exact formulation for this problem. By exploiting the structural properties of the performance measure, we attain an exact Benders decomposition algorithm which solves instances with up to 1000 jobs and 8 machines to optimality within a few seconds. In the last part, we tackle the unrestricted common due date just-in-time scheduling problemand develop a logic-based Benders decomposition algorithm. Aside from offering the best solution approach for this problem, we demonstrate that it is possible to devise scalable logic-based algorithms for scheduling problems with irregular minsum objectives