Discrete harmony search algorithm for the no wait flow shop scheduling problem with makespan criterion

Abstract

This paper presents a discrete harmony search (DHS) algorithm for solving no-wait flow shop scheduling problems with makespan criterion. Firstly, a harmony is represented as a discrete job permutation and three heuristic methods are proposed to initialize the harmony memory. Secondly, by dynamically regrouping mechanism, the harmony memory is divided into several groups for sharing information reciprocally. Thirdly, to stress the balance between the global exploration and local exploration, a variable neighborhood search algorithm is developed and embedded in the DHS algorithm. Computational simulation results based on the well-known benchmarks and statistical performance comparisons are provided. Computational results and comparison show the effectiveness of the presented DHS algorithm in solving the no-wait flow shop scheduling with makespan criterion. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.