Multi-Agent System for Flexible Job-shop Scheduling Problem Based on Human Immune System

The flexible job-shop scheduling problem (FJSP) is very important in both fields of production management and combinatorial optimization. The high combinatorial complexity of the problem makes it hard to find the optimal solution within reasonable time in most cases. The multi-agent optimization method can reduce the combinatorial complexity of the problem by the task decomposition and the real-time distribution. However, it is quite difficult to achieve an optimal solution of FJSP with multi-agent optimization method. The multi-agent scheduling system (MASS) and the human immune system (HIS) are similar in structure and negotiation strategies. In this paper, a new MASS is proposed for solving FJSP. The MASS is inspired by the structure and negotiation strategies of the HIS. The negotiation strategies of the MASS are more consistent with the negotiation strategies of the HIS. Finally, the negotiation strategies of the MASS are tested with two instances taken from the open literature and compared with the test results, which show that the proposed method is effective for solving FJSP.