GA Based Heuristic to Minimize Makespan in Single Machine Scheduling Problem with Uniform Parallel Machines

This paper considers the single machine scheduling problem with uniform parallel machines in which the objective is to minimize the makespan. Four different GA based heuristics are designed by taking different combinations of crossover methods, viz. single point crossover method and two point crossover method, and job allocation methods while generating initial population, viz. equal number of jobs allocation to machines and proportionate number of jobs allocation to machines based on machine speeds. A detailed experiment has been conducted by assuming three factors, viz. Problem size, crossover method and job allocation method on 135 problem sizes each with two replications generated randomly. Finally, it is suggested to use the GA based heuristic with single point crossover method, in which the proportionate number of jobs allocated to machines based on machine speeds.