Hybrid Metaheuristic for Just In Time Scheduling in a Flow Shop with Distinct Time Windows

Abstract

Scheduling to meet clients’ order has been a challenge in recent times therefore researches in Just-in-Time (JIT) scheduling has evolved. JIT scheduling involves reducing waste, inventory costs and making goods available as at when needed. This work addresses the JIT scheduling problem on flow shop where jobs incur penalties if they are not completed within their specific due windows. The problem is to obtain an execution sequence that will minimize the bi-criteria earliness-tardiness objective. JIT scheduling problem is prevalent in real life manufacturing applications. An hybrid of Tabu-Search and Variable Neighborhood Search (HTVNS) algorithm is proposed for the problem. To justify this hybridization a benchmark of 12500 problem instances were solved and the result obtained is compared with an algorithm in the literature. The result shows that the proposed hybrid metahueristic algorithm performs considerable better.