Multi-user-oriented manufacturing service scheduling with an improved NSGA-II approach in the cloud manufacturing system

Manufacturing service scheduling (MSS) is an important step in managing the social resource services in the cloud manufacturing (CMfg) system. However, recent research investigates the problem almost from the task level, and little research considers the demands of multiple users in MSS problem. In this paper, the obvious characteristics of multi-user-oriented MSS are analysed by comparing with the multi-task-oriented MSS problem, and then a multi-user-oriented MSS mathematical model is built to cater to the practical demands of multiple users. In order to solve the proposed model, an improved NSGA-II (INSGA-II), integrating k-means algorithm and local search strategy, is developed to improve the quality of solutions. Six scenarios are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm by comparing with other three algorithms from four metrics. The flexibility and universality of the proposed model is examined and the effect of user requirements on the Pareto solution is analysed. The results present the efficiency of k-means cluster and local search in the INSGA-II algorithm and provide a practical solution to select the better schedule for users.