A Heuristic Rule Based on Complex Network for Open Shop Scheduling Problem with Sequence-Dependent Setup Times and Delivery Times

Abstract

In the real industrial scenario, the setup times and delivery times are two non-negligible factors, but only few studies have considered the open shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times and delivery times (OSSP-STDT). In this paper, a mixed integer linear programming model is formulated firstly to accurately solve small-size problems, but it will fail when the size of the problem increases. Then, a complex scheduling network model is developed to characterize OSSP-STDT. After comprehensively considering the local topological features and time attributes in the complex network model, an effective heuristic rule based on complex network is established for solving large-size problems. Finally, an actual warehouse scheduling problem is converted into the aforementioned problem and used as one typical application scenario. Experiments have been conducted and computational results show that compared with exact solutions and meta-heuristics, the proposed algorithm can solve the large-size open shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times and delivery times more effectively and efficiently.