A New Method for Solving the Flow Shop Scheduling Problem on Symmetric Networks Using a Hybrid Nature-Inspired Algorithm

Abstract

Recently, symmetric networks have received much attention in various applications. They are a single route for incoming and outgoing network traffic. In symmetric networks, one of the fundamental categories of wide-ranging scheduling problems with several practical applications is the FSSP. Strictly speaking, a scheduling issue is found when assigning resources to the activities to maximize goals. The difficulty of finding solutions in polynomial time makes the flow shop scheduling problem (FSSP) NP-hard. Hence, the utilization of a hybrid optimization technique, a new approach to the flow shop scheduling issue, on symmetric networks is given in the current research. In order to address this issue, each party’s strengths are maximized and their weaknesses reduced, and this study integrates the Ant Colony Algorithm with Particle Swarm Optimization (ACO-PSO). Even though these methods have been employed before, their hybrid approach improves their resilience in a variety of sectors. The ACO-PSO is put to the test by contrasting it with innovative algorithms in the literature. The search space is first filled with a variety of solutions by the algorithm. Using pheromones in the mutual region, the ACO algorithm locally controls mobility. Moreover, the PSO-based random interaction among the solutions yields the global maximum. The PSO’s random interaction among the solutions typically results in the global maximum. The computational research demonstrates that the recommended ACO-PSO method outperforms the existing ones by a large margin. The Friedman test also shows that the average algorithm ranks for ACO and PSO are 1.79 and 2.08, respectively. The proposed method has an average rank of 2.13 as well. It indicates that the suggested algorithm’s effectiveness increased.

Keywords

• symmetric networks
• flow shop
• optimization algorithm
• multi-objective
• scheduling problem