An efficient meta-heuristic based on self-control dominance concept for a bi-objective re-entrant scheduling problem with outsourcing

Abstract

We study a two-machine re-entrant flowshop scheduling problem in which the jobs have strict due dates. In order to be able to satisfy all customers and avoid any tardiness, scheduler decides which job shall be outsourced and find the best sequence for in-house jobs. Two objective functions are considered: minimizing total completion time for in-house jobs and minimizing outsource cost for others. Since the problem is NP-hard, an efficient genetic algorithm based on modified self-control dominance concept with adaptive generation size is proposed. Non-dominated solutions are compared with classical NSGA-II regarding different metrics. The results indicate the ability of our proposed algorithm to find a good approximation of the middle part of the Pareto front. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.