We propose a constructive heuristic approach for the solution of the permutation flow-shop problem. The objective function of all algorithms is the minimization of the makespan. Our approach employs Johnson’s rule to give a good initial solution for the improvement heuristic, also known as metaheuristics. The proposed heuristic algorithm, named MOD, is tested against four other heuristics that ...

Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a real life constraint satisfaction problem to find minimal travel distances of vehicles to serve customers. Capacitated VRP (CVRP) is the simplest form of VRP considering vehicle capacity constraint. Constructive and clustering are the two popular approaches to solve CVRP. A constructive approach creates routes and attempts to minimize the cost at the same time...

This paper considers the bandwidth allocation problem for an Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON). An EPON is one of the best options for high-speed access networks. This paper formulates the optimal bandwidth allocation problem with an analytical model to maximize throughput and weighted fairness simultaneously. First, the optimal solution under certain conditions is characterized. Then, tw...

This paper describes a non-linear great deluge hyper-heuristic incorporating a reinforcement learning mechanism for the selection of low-level heuristics and a non-linear great deluge acceptance criterion. The proposed hyper-heuristic deals with complete solutions, i.e. it is a solution improvement approach not a constructive one. Two types of reinforcement learning are investigated: learning w...

This paper studies truck scheduling in a resource-constrained crossdock. The problem decides on the sequence of incoming and outgoing trucks at the dock doors of the crossdocking terminal, subject to the availability of crossdock resources including dock doors and material handling systems. The resources are assumed non-preemptive making it necessary to address the feasibility of the problem be...

Paper cutting is a simple process of slicing large rolls of paper, jumbo-reels, into various sub-rolls with variable widths based on demands risen by customers. Since the variability is high due to collected various orders into a pool, the process turns to be production scheduling problem, which requires optimisation so as to minimise the final remaining amount of paper wasted. The problem hold...

Optimization in sports is a field of increasing interest. Combinatorial optimization techniques have been applied e.g. to game scheduling and playoff elimination. A common problem usually found in sports management is the assignment of referees to games already scheduled. There are a number of rules and objectives that should be taken into account when referees are assigned to games. We address...

In this paper we address a hybrid flow shop scheduling problem considering the minimization of the sum of the total earliness and tardiness penalties. This problem is proven to be NP-hard, and consequently the development of heuristic and meta-heuristic approaches to solve it is well justified. So, we propose an ant colony optimization method to deal with this problem. Our proposed method has s...

This paper presents an investigation of a simple generic hyper-heuristic approach upon a set of widely used constructive heuristics (graph coloring heuristics) in timetabling. Within the hyperheuristic framework, a Tabu Search approach is employed to search for permutations of graph heuristics which are used for constructing timetables in exam and course timetabling problems. This underpins a m...

We present a genetic programming system to evolve reusable heuristics for the two dimensional strip packing problem. The evolved heuristics are constructive, and decide both which piece to pack next and where to place that piece, given the current partial solution. This work contributes to a growing research area which represents a paradigm shift in search methodologies. Instead of using evolut...