Genetic Algorithms for Shop Scheduling Problems: a Survey

Genetic algorithms are a very popular heuristic which have been successfully applied to many optimization problems within the last 30 years. In this chapter, we give a survey on some genetic algorithms for shop scheduling problems. In a shop scheduling problem, a set of jobs has to be processed on a set of machines such that a specific optimization criterion is satisfied. According to the restrictions on the technological routes of the jobs, we distinguish a flow shop (each job is characterized by the same technological route), a job shop (each job has a specific route) and an open shop (no technological route is imposed on the jobs). We also consider some extensions of shop scheduling problems such as hybrid or flexible shops (at each processing stage, we may have a set of parallel machines) or the inclusion of additional processing constraints such as controllable processing times, release times, setup times or the no-wait condition. After giving an introduction into basic genetic algorithms discussing briefly solution representations, the generation of the initial population, selection principles, the application of genetic operators such as crossover and mutation, and termination criteria, we discuss several genetic algorithms for the particular problem types emphasizing their common features and differences. Here we mainly focus on single-criterion problems (minimization of the makespan or of a particular sum criterion such as total completion time or total tardiness) but mention briefly also some work on multi-criteria problems. We discuss some computational results and compare them with those obtained by other heuristics. In addition, we also summarize the generation of benchmark instances for makespan problems and give a brief introduction into the use of the program package ’LiSA A Library of Scheduling Algorithms’ developed at the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg for solving shop scheduling problems, which also includes a genetic algorithm.