Tabu search and Simulated annealing for new three-stage assembly flowshop scheduling with blocking

In this research we considered a three-stage assembly flowshop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times at the first stage and blocking times between each stage in such a way that the weighted mean completion time and makespan are minimized. We introduced new mathematical model for this case of scheduling problem. Whereas obtaining an optimal solution for this type of complex, large-sized problem in reasonable computational time by using exact optimization methods is extremely difficult, we proposed two meta-heuristic algorithms namely simulated annealing and tabu search in order to solve the given problem. Finally, the computational results are shown and compared in order to show the efficiency of our proposed algorithms.

TABU SEARCH ; SIMULATED ANNEALING ; NEW THREE-STAGE ASSEMBLY FLOWSHOP SCHEDULING ; BLOCKING