Hierarchical Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm of IPSVR Problem

Production scheduling (PS) and vehicle routing (VR) are integrated to solve a production issue with timing requirement. The issue of multiple production chains and multiple vehicles is considered to produce productions and deliver them to customers. In the integrated production scheduling and vehicle routing (IPSVR) problem, each order is normally defined by its dependent setup time and processing time for the producing process and by its delivering time and time window for the delivering process. In this paper, a hierarchical particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed for solving the IPSVR problem and reaching the minimum tardiness time.