Different evolutionary approaches to solve the flow shop scheduling problem

Abstract

Over the past three decades extensive search have been done on pure m-machine flow shop problems. Many researchers faced the Flow Shop Scheduling Problem (FSSP) by means of well-known heuristics which, are successfully used for certain instances of the problem providing a single acceptable solution. Current trends involve distinct evolutionary computation approaches. This work shows [5, 6, 7] implementations of diverse evolutionary approaches on a set of flow shop scheduling instances, including latest approaches using a multirecombination feature, Multiple Crossovers per Couple (MCPC), and partial replacement of the population when possible stagnation is detected. A discussion on implementation details, analysis and a comparison of evolutionary and conventional approaches to the problem are shown.