%0 Journal Article
%T A Branch-and-Bound Based Heuristic Algorithm for Minimizing Makespan in Machining-Assembly Flowshop Scheduling
%A Kazuko Morizawa
%J Engineering
%P 877-885
%@ 1947-394X
%D 2014
%I Scientific Research Publishing
%R 10.4236/eng.2014.613081
%X This paper proposes a heuristic algorithm, called list-based squeezing branch and bound algorithm, for solving a machine-fixed, machining-assembly flowshop scheduling problem to minimize makespan. The machine-fixed, machining-assembly flowshop consists of some parallel two-machine flow lines at a machining stage and one robot at an assembly stage. Since an optimal schedule for this problem is not always a permutation schedule, the proposed algorithm first finds a promising permutation schedule, and then searches better non-permutation schedules near the promising permutation schedule in an enumerative manner by elaborating a branching procedure in a branch and bound algorithm. The results of numerical experiments show that the proposed algorithm can efficiently provide an optimal or a near-optimal schedule with high accuracy such as mean relative error being less than 0.2% and the maximum relative error being at most 3%.
%K Scheduling
%K Heuristic
%K Branch and Bound Algorithm
%K Machining-Assembly Flowshop
%K Makespan
%U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52144