A hybrid algorithm for the permutation flowshop scheduling problem without intermediate buffers

Abstract

This paper deals with the permutation flowshop scheduling problem without intermediate buffers and presents a hybrid algorithm based on the scatter search and the variable neighborhood search. In the hybrid algorithm, the solutions with good quality and diversity are maintained by a reference set of scatter search, and the search at each generation starts from a solution generated from the reference set so as to improve the search diversity while guaranteeing the quality of the initial solution. In addition, a variable neighbourhood based on the notion of job-block is developed, and the neighbourhood size can adaptively change according to the construction of the job-block. Such a dynamic strategy can help to obtain a balance between search depth and diversity. Extensive experiments on benchmark problems are carried out and the results show that the proposed hybrid algorithm is powerful and competitive with the other powerful algorithms in the literature.