A hybrid algorithm for flexible job-shop scheduling problem with setup times

[EN] Job-shop scheduling problem is one of the most important fields in manufacturing optimization where a set of n jobs must be processed on a set of m specified machines. Each job consists of a specific set of operations, which have to be processed according to a given order. The Flexible Job Shop problem (FJSP) is a generalization of the above-mentioned problem, where each operation can be processed by a set of resources and has a processing time depending on the resource used. The FJSP problems cover two difficulties, namely, machine assignment problem and operation sequencing problem. This paper addresses the flexible job-shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times to minimize two kinds of objectives function: makespan and bi-criteria objective function. For that, we propose a hybrid algorithm based on genetic algorithm (GA) and variable neighbourhood search (VNS) to solve this problem. To evaluate the performance of our algorithm, we compare our results with other methods existing in literature. All the results show the superiority of our algorithm against the available ones in terms of solution quality.Azzouz, A.; Ennigrou, M.; Ben Said, L. (2017). A hybrid algorithm for flexible job-shop scheduling problem with setup times. International Journal of Production Management and Engineering. 5(1):23-30. doi:10.4995/ijpme.2017.6618SWORD233051Allahverdi, A. (2015). The third comprehensive survey on scheduling problems with setup times/costs. European Journal of Operational Research, 246(2), 345-378. doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2015.04.004Azzouz, A., Ennigrou, M., & Jlifi, B. (2015). Diversifying TS using GA in Multi-agent System for Solving Flexible Job Shop Problem. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics. doi:10.5220/0005511000940101Azzouz, A., Ennigrou, M., Jlifi, B., & Ghedira, K. (2012). 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Welcome to OR&S! Where students, academics and professionals come together

In this manuscript, an overview is given of the activities done at the Operations Research and Scheduling (OR&S) research group of the faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Ghent University. Unlike the book published by [1] that gives a summary of all academic and professional activities done in the field of Project Management in collaboration with the OR&S group, the focus of the current manuscript lies on academic publications and the integration of these published results in teaching activities. An overview is given of the publications from the very beginning till today, and some of the topics that have led to publications are discussed in somewhat more detail. Moreover, it is shown how the research results have been used in the classroom to actively involve students in our research activities