Application of the Simulated Annealing Algorithm to Minimize the makespan on the Unrelated Parallel Machine Scheduling Problem with Setup Times

Abstract

In this paper, the unrelated parallel machine scheduling problem considering machine-dependent and job sequence-dependent setup times is addressed. This problem involves the scheduling of n jobs on m unrelated machines with setup times in order to minimize the makespan. The Simulated Annealing algorithm is used to solve four sets of small scheduling problems, from the literature, on two unrelated machines: the first one has six jobs, the second has seven jobs and the third and fourth has eight and nine jobs, respectively. The results seem promising when compared with other methods referred in literature.