Parameterized complexity of machine scheduling: 15 open problems

Machine scheduling problems are a long-time key domain of algorithms and complexity research. A novel approach to machine scheduling problems are fixed-parameter algorithms. To stimulate this thriving research direction, we propose 15 open questions in this area whose resolution we expect to lead to the discovery of new approaches and techniques both in scheduling and parameterized complexity theory.Comment: Version accepted to Computers & Operations Researc

Scheduling Jobs in Flowshops with the Introduction of Additional Machines in the Future

This is the author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by Elsevier and can be found at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/expert-systems-with-applications/.The problem of scheduling jobs to minimize total weighted tardiness in flowshops,\ud with the possibility of evolving into hybrid flowshops in the future, is investigated in\ud this paper. As this research is guided by a real problem in industry, the flowshop\ud considered has considerable flexibility, which stimulated the development of an\ud innovative methodology for this research. Each stage of the flowshop currently has\ud one or several identical machines. However, the manufacturing company is planning\ud to introduce additional machines with different capabilities in different stages in the\ud near future. Thus, the algorithm proposed and developed for the problem is not only\ud capable of solving the current flow line configuration but also the potential new\ud configurations that may result in the future. A meta-heuristic search algorithm based\ud on Tabu search is developed to solve this NP-hard, industry-guided problem. Six\ud different initial solution finding mechanisms are proposed. A carefully planned\ud nested split-plot design is performed to test the significance of different factors and\ud their impact on the performance of the different algorithms. To the best of our\ud knowledge, this research is the first of its kind that attempts to solve an industry-guided\ud problem with the concern for future developments

Efficient heuristics for the parallel blocking flow shop scheduling problem

We consider the NP-hard problem of scheduling n jobs in F identical parallel flow shops, each consisting of a series of m machines, and doing so with a blocking constraint. The applied criterion is to minimize the makespan, i.e., the maximum completion time of all the jobs in F flow shops (lines). The Parallel Flow Shop Scheduling Problem (PFSP) is conceptually similar to another problem known in the literature as the Distributed Permutation Flow Shop Scheduling Problem (DPFSP), which allows modeling the scheduling process in companies with more than one factory, each factory with a flow shop configuration. Therefore, the proposed methods can solve the scheduling problem under the blocking constraint in both situations, which, to the best of our knowledge, has not been studied previously. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model along with some constructive and improvement heuristics to solve the parallel blocking flow shop problem (PBFSP) and thus minimize the maximum completion time among lines. The proposed constructive procedures use two approaches that are totally different from those proposed in the literature. These methods are used as initial solution procedures of an iterated local search (ILS) and an iterated greedy algorithm (IGA), both of which are combined with a variable neighborhood search (VNS). The proposed constructive procedure and the improved methods take into account the characteristics of the problem. The computational evaluation demonstrates that both of them –especially the IGA– perform considerably better than those algorithms adapted from the DPFSP literature.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Modified Neh Heuristic On Makespan Reduction In Permutation Flow Shop Problems

Permutation flow shop problem (PFSP) is one of the commonly reviewed machine environments in scheduling problems. The order sequence for each process remains unchanged for all machines. Few algorithms have been developed to decide the sequence of n jobs and m machines that can minimize makespan in flow shops. Throughout the past 30 years, the NEH heuristics developed by Nawaz, Enscore and Ham has been commonly regarded as the best heuristic for minimizing the makespan in permutation flow shops. Due to these findings, NEH heuristics is selected as the basis of this study. Modification is done to enhance the objectives of this study, which is makespan and idle time reduction. In this study, a total of 109 flow-shop problems were solved with the number of machines and jobs being set at a range of 4 to 25. 100 problems were carried out using numerical assessments. The process times of the jobs were randomly generated within the range of 1 to 10 using Excel spreadsheets. Whereas the remaining 9 sets of tests were carried out using real world case studies. In each case study, the company involved was provided with a surface mounting technology (SMT) service. It has the capability of planning schedules by adopting the backward scheduling technique. The proposed heuristic, NEH-M will be compared to both the historical production schedule and NEH schedule in order to verify and validate the performance of the proposed idea. The performance of the NEH-M heuristics was computed using the error deviation (ED) formula. The generated results gained through Excel modeling show that the NEH-M heuristics outperforms the historical production schedule in all conditions. On the other hand, when the NEH-M heuristics is compared to the NEH heuristics, the overall performance of makespan reduction is underperforming while the overall performance of idle time reduction is over performing when there are large numbers of machines and jobs

A survey of scheduling problems with setup times or costs

Author name used in this publication: C. T. NgAuthor name used in this publication: T. C. E. Cheng2007-2008 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

Scheduling problems with the effects of deterioration and learning

Author name used in this publication: T. C. E. Cheng2006-2007 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

Models and Strategies for Variants of the Job Shop Scheduling Problem

Recently, a variety of constraint programming and Boolean satisfiability approaches to scheduling problems have been introduced. They have in common the use of relatively simple propagation mechanisms and an adaptive way to focus on the most constrained part of the problem. In some cases, these methods compare favorably to more classical constraint programming methods relying on propagation algorithms for global unary or cumulative resource constraints and dedicated search heuristics. In particular, we described an approach that combines restarting, with a generic adaptive heuristic and solution guided branching on a simple model based on a decomposition of disjunctive constraints. In this paper, we introduce an adaptation of this technique for an important subclass of job shop scheduling problems (JSPs), where the objective function involves minimization of earliness/tardiness costs. We further show that our technique can be improved by adding domain specific information for one variant of the JSP (involving time lag constraints). In particular we introduce a dedicated greedy heuristic, and an improved model for the case where the maximal time lag is 0 (also referred to as no-wait JSPs).Comment: Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming - CP 2011, Perugia : Italy (2011