《HuangLiao06 - ACO for the job shop scheduling problem》.pdfVIP

Computers Operations Research 35 (2008) 1030–1046 /locate/cor Ant colony optimization combined with taboo search for the job shop scheduling problem Kuo-Ling Huang, Ching-Jong Liao∗ Department of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, 43 Keelung Road, Section 4, Taipei 106, Taiwan Available online 22 August 2006 Abstract In this paper, we present a hybrid algorithm combining ant colony optimization algorithm with the taboo search algorithm for the classical job shop scheduling problem. Instead of using the conventional construction approach to construct feasible schedules, the proposed ant colony optimization algorithm employs a novel decomposition method inspired by the shifting bottleneck procedure, and a mechanism of occasional reoptimizations of partial schedules. Besides, a taboo search algorithm is embedded to improve the solution quality. We run the proposed algorithm on 101 benchmark instances and obtain competitive results and a new best upper bound for one open benchmark instance is found. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Ant colony optimization; Taboo search; Job shop scheduling; Makespan 1. Introduction The problem that we address in this paper arises in the context of the classical job shop scheduling problem (JSSP). In the JSSP, a set of jobs has to be processed on several machines subject to both conjunctive and disjunctive constraints, and the objective is to minimize the makespan. This problem is NP-hard in the strong sense [1]; not until 1988 (publication year) could a relatively small instance with 10 jobs and 10 machines be solved to optimality. Due to the complexit