Scheduling in flowshop and cellular manufacturing systems with multiple objectives-a genetic algorithmic approach

The problem of scheduling in flowshop and flowline-based cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) is considered with the objectives of minimizing makespan, total flowtime and machine idletime. We first discuss the formulation of time-tabling in a flowline-based CMS. A genetic algorithm is then presented for scheduling in a flowshop. The proposed genetic algorithm is compared with the existing multi-criterion heuristic, and results of the computational evaluation are presented. We introduce some modifications in the heuristic seed sequences, while using them to ¡nitialÍ7.e subpopulations in the algorithm for scheduling in a flowline-based CMS. The proposed algorithm is also found to perform well for scheduling in a flowline-based CMS. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Ltd.