A Hybrid Population-Based Incremental Learning Algorithm for M-Machine Reentrant Permutation Flow-Shop Scheduling

In this paper, a hybrid population-based incremental learning algorithm (HPBIL) is proposed for solving the m-machine reentrant permutation flow-shop scheduling problem (MRPFSSP). The objective function is to minimize the maximum completion time (i.e., makespan). In HPBIL, the PBIL with a proposed Insert-based mutation is used to perform global exploration, and an Interchange-based neighborhood search with first move strategy is designed to enhance the local exploitation ability. Computational experiments and comparisons demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed HPBIL.