Application of a hybrid evolutionary algorithm to resource-constrained parallel machine scheduling with setup times

Abstract

We address the problem of resource-constrained parallel machine scheduling with setup times in the practical context of microelectronic components manufacturing. This NP-hard problem is addressed using a biased random-key genetic algorithm hybridized with tailored local search procedures organized using variable neighborhood descent. The only benchmark available in the literature is utilized, and the optimal results are presented for all instances. Two new sets with 270 challenging instances are proposed to assess the quality of the solutions reported by the proposed method. A series of experiments are conducted to generate lower and upper bounds, including four models, two list processing heuristics from the literature and an implementation of a general variable neighborhood search metaheuristic. The bounds are used as reference values. The average percentage distances from the lower and upper bounds were 22.44% and −7.62%, respectively.