Green scheduling of packaging in the global logistics distribution centre with a dominant job and deterioration effects

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper studies an energy-efficient parallel packaging machine scheduling problem in the global logistics distribution centre considering a dominant job and the linear deterioration effect. The objective is to minimise total energy costs. First, we discuss the structural properties of the single-machine scheduling problem without a dominant job. Then, for the single-machine scheduling problem with a dominant job, we divide the problem into three situations depending on the time window requirement of the special customer. Based on the structural properties, two heuristic algorithms are designed to solve the single machine scheduling problem with or without a dominant job. For the parallel-machine scheduling problem, we develop four neighbourhood structures and propose a variable neighbourhood search (VNS) algorithm to find the near-optimal solution in a reasonable time. Finally, computational experiments are conducted, with the results validating the effectiveness of the designed neighbourhood structures and the VNS algorithm.