Quantum Evolutionary Algorithm for Chemical Parallel Flow Shop Scheduling Problem

Abstract

This paper studies the typical problem of integration of chemical batching and scheduling, which is characterized by multi-product, multi-stage, parallel production, production coordination between stages, limit of equipment production capacity and inventory capacity, parallel equipment selection and limitation of batch quantity.The optimization objective of this problem is to minimize the make-span by arranging batch number and size, allocating machines, making decision about the processing sequence and scheduling time of batch on a machine on the premise that the equipment production capacity, maximum inventory and material supply coordination are met.This paper presents modified quantum evolutionary algorithm(MQEA).The computational results show that the MQAE may find optimal or suboptimal solutions in a short run time for all the instances.