Hybrid particle swarm optimization with a Cauchy distribution for solving a reentrant flexible flow shop problem with a blocking constraint

Abstract

This paper addresses a problem of a two-stage flexible flow shop with reentrant and blocking constraints in Hard Disk Drive Manufacturing. The problem can be formulated as a deterministic FFS|stage = 2, rcrc, block|Cmax problem. In this study, adaptive hybrid particle swarm optimization with a Cauchy distribution (HPSO) was developed. The objective of this research is to find the sequences that minimize the makespan. To demonstrate their performance, computational experiments were performed on a number of test problems and the results are reported. Experimental results showed that the proposed algorithms gave better solutions than the classical particle swarm optimization (PSO) for all test problems. Additionally, the relative improvement (RI) of the makespan solutions obtained by the proposed algorithms with respect to those currently used was performed to measure the quality of the makespan solutions generated by the proposed algorithms. The RI results show that the HPSO algorithm can improve the makespan solution by an average of 14.78%.