Scheduling algorithm based on evolutionary computing in identical parallel machine production line

Evolutionary programming is a kind of evolutionary computing method based on stochastic search suitable for solving system optimization. In this paper, evolutionary programming method is applied to the identical parallel machine production line scheduling problem of minimizing the number of tardy jobs, which is a very important optimization problem in the field of research on CIMS and industrial engineering, and researches on problem formulation, expression of feasible solution, methods for the generation of the initial population, the mutation and improvement on the local search ability of evolutionary programming. Computational results of different scales of problems show that the evolutionary programming algorithm proposed in this paper is efficient, and that it is fit for solving large-scale identical parallel machine production line scheduling problems, and that the quality of its solution has advantage over so far the best heuristic procedure. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.