A new encoding scheme-based hybrid algorithm for minimising two-machine flow-shop group scheduling problem

This article investigates the two-machine flow-shop group scheduling problem (GSP) with sequence-dependent setup and removal times, and job transportation times between machines. The objective is to minimise the total completion time. As known, this problem is an NP-hard problem and generalises the typical two-machine GSPs. In this article, a new encoding scheme based on permutation representation is proposed to transform a random job permutation to a feasible permutation for GSPs. The proposed encoding scheme simultaneously determines both the sequence of jobs in each group and the sequence of groups. By reasonably combining particle swarm optimisation (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA), we develop a fast and easily implemented hybrid algorithm (HA) for solving the considered problems. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed HA are demonstrated and compared with those of standard PSO and GA by numerical results of various tested instances with group numbers up to 20. In addition, three different lower bounds are developed to evaluate the solution quality of the HA. Limited numerical results indicate that the proposed HA is a viable and effective approach for the studied two-machine flow-shop group scheduling problem.