Hybrid cooperation models for the tool switching problem

Abstract

The Tool Switching Problem (ToSP) is a hard combinatorial optimization problem of relevance in the field of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), that has been tackled in the literature using both complete and heuristic methods, including local-search metaheuristics, population-based methods and hybrids thereof (e.g., memetic algorithms). This work approaches the ToSP using several hybrid cooperative models where spatially-structured agents are endowed with specific localsearch/ population-based strategies. Issues such as the intervening techniques and the communication topology are analyzed via an extensive empirical evaluation. It is shown that the cooperative models provide better results than their constituent parts. Furthermore, they not only provide solutions of similar quality to those returned by the memetic approach but raise interest prospects with respect to its scalability. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.