A genetic algorithm for general machine scheduling problems

This paper deals with the so-called general machine scheduling problems. In the general machine scheduling problems, job shop type jobs and open shop type jobs are scheduled together and the imposition of precedence constraints is allowed between operations belonging to either the same job or different jobs. This paper proposes a genetic algorithm to solve such general machine scheduling problems. Some experimental results are presented to show the applicability of the proposed method. The method can be used to solve traditional job shop scheduling, flow shop scheduling, and open shop scheduling as well as general machine scheduling problems.