A hybrid electromagnetism-like algorithm for single machine scheduling problem

Abstract

Electromagnetism-like algorithm (EM) is a population-based metaheuristic which has been proposed to solve continuous problems effectively. In this paper, we present a new meta-heuristic that uses the EM methodology to solve the single machine scheduling problem. Single machine scheduling is a combinatorial optimization problem. Schedule representation for our problem is based on random keys. Because there is little research in solving the combinatorial optimization problem (COP) by EM, the paper attempts to employ the random-key concept enabling EM to solve COP in single machine scheduling problem. We present a hybrid algorithm that combines the EM methodology and genetic operators to obtain the best/optimal schedule for this single machine scheduling problem, which attempts to achieve convergence and diversity effect when they iteratively solve the problem. The objective in our problem is minimization of the sum of earliness and tardiness. This hybrid algorithm was tested on a set of standard test problems available in the literature. The computational results show that this hybrid algorithm performs better than the standard genetic algorithm. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.