Scheduling Hybrid Flowshops under Machine Eligibility Constraints

Abstract

This research addresses the scheduling problem in a hybrid flow shop under machine eligibility constraints. The production line consists of S stages, each of which may have more than one identical machines. Setup times are assumed to be included in the processing time. The objective of this research is to minimize the makespan.  A mathematical model was developed for small size problems and a heuristic algorithm (Hybrid Flowshop under Machine Eligibilith Constraints Algorithm (HFMECA)) was developed to solve larger problems. Computational experiments were performed and the performance of the heuristic algorithm was measured. The experimental results show that the average deviation of the HFMECA from the optimal solutions is 5.20%