An Efficient Iterated Greedy Algorithm for the Makespan Blocking Flow Shop Scheduling Problem

Abstract

We propose in this paper a Blocking Iterated Greedy algorithm (BIG) which makes an adjustment between two relevant destruction and construction stages to solve the blocking flow shop scheduling problem and minimize the maximum completion time (makespan). The greedy algorithm starts from an initial solution generated based on some well-known heuristic. Then, solutions are enhanced till some stopping condition and through the above mentioned stages. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed technique are deduced from all the experimental results obtained on both small randomly generated instances and on Taillard's benchmark in comparison with state-of-the-art methods.