A Study on Individual in Genetic Algorithm for a Modified Flowshop Scheduling Problem

Abstract

This paper deals with an optimal production ordering problem for a modified flowshop manufacturing process having several machines and a carrier. The carrier carries a product between the machines and the yards. Through the motion of the carrier, the succeeding part of the process gives an influence on the preceding part. This leads to a complicated constraint of the problem. Further, the objective function is defined for evaluating a constant rate of production as well as the total processing time.
For obtaining a good suboptimal solution, the genetic algorithm (GA) is applied to this problem. GA is a new method to solve combinatorial optimization problems by simulating the process of natural evolution. The individual description and the procedures for carrying out the operations of reproduction, crossover and mutation are shown. Particularly, our attention is paid to the characteristics of individual description and the effects of redundancy and lethal gene in the individual description.