An efficient tabu search algorithm for flexible flow shop sequence-dependent group scheduling problems

In this paper, the flexible flow shop sequence-dependent group scheduling problem (FFSDGS) with minimisation of makespan as the criterion (FFm | fmls, Splk |Cmax) is investigated. For the first time a mathematical model for the proposed research problem is developed. Since the problem is shown to be NP-hard, six metaheuristic algorithms based on tabu search (TS) are developed to efficiently solve the problem