A hybrid algorithm to solve the stochastic flow shop scheduling problems with machine break down

Abstract

A flow shop scheduling problem with uncertain processing times and machine break down is considered in this paper. The objective is to minimise the maximum completion time (makespan). As the problem is non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard), a hybrid algorithm (HA) is proposed to solve the problem. The firefly algorithm (FA) is hybridised with the variable neighbourhood search (VNS) algorithm in the proposed HA. Extensive computational experiments are carried out with random problem instances to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm.