A genetic algorithm for a two-machine flowshop with a limited waiting time constraint and sequence-dependent setup times

Abstract

This study considers a two-machine flowshop with a limited waiting time constraint between the two machines and sequence-dependent setup times on the second machine. These characteristics are motivated from semiconductor manufacturing systems. The objective of this scheduling problem is to minimize the total tardiness. In this study, a mixed-integer linear programming formulation was provided to define the problem mathematically and used to find optimal solutions using a mathematical programming solver, CPLEX. As CPLEX required a significantly long computation time because this problem is known to be NP-complete, a genetic algorithm was proposed to solve the problem within a short computation time. Computational experiments were performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm and the suggested GA outperformed the other heuristics considered in the study.