Efficient Algorithms for Solving Flexible Flow shop Scheduling Problem with Unrelated Parallel Machines and Sequence-dependent Setup Times Considering Earliness/Tardiness Minimization

In this paper, a mixed integer programming formulation for flexible flow shop scheduling problem with unrelated machines and sequence dependent setup times is proposed in order to minimize sum of earliness and tardiness. Due to the fact that this problem is NP-Hard, a SA-based heuristic as well as a PSO-based heuristic are proposed to tackle the complexity of the problem. Later, the parameters of these algorithms are set by Taguchi method and then, these meta-heuristic algorithms are compared with each other by 410 test problems. At the end, a number of topics are proposed for future research.