A differential evolution algorithm for the no-idle flowshop scheduling problem with total tardiness criterion

In this paper, we investigate the use of a continuous algorithm for the no-idle permutation flowshop scheduling (NIPFS) problem with tardiness criterion. For this purpose, a differential evolution algorithm with variable parameter search (vpsDE) is developed to be compared to a well-known random key genetic algorithm (RKGA) from the literature. The motivation is due to the fact that a continuous DE can be very competitive for the problems where RKGAs are well suited. As an application area, we choose the NIPFS problem with the total tardiness criterion in which there is no literature on it to the best of our knowledge. The NIPFS problem is a variant of the well-known permutation flowshop (PFSP) scheduling problem where idle time is not allowed on machines. In other words, the start time of processing the first job on a given machine must be delayed in order to satisfy the no-idle constraint. The paper presents the following contributions. First of all, a continuous optimisation algorithm is used to solve ...