A novel mathematical model for a scheduling problem of dynamic machine-tool selection and operation allocation in a flexible manufacturing system: A modified evolutionary algorithm

Abstract

Although a machine-tool selection and operation allocation problem of a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) is known for its complexity, scheduling of these systems is more operative and more complex. This paper considers scheduling of an FMS with dynamic machine-tool selection and operation allocation. In addition, due to the NP-hard nature of this problem, a modified Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) considering an island model is proposed to solve the given problem. Its performance is tested on a number of randomly generated problems. Furthermore, the related results are compared with the results obtained by a Branch-and-Bound (B&B) method. It has been found that the modified EA with the island model gives good results in terms of the objective function values and CPU times.