A blocking flow shop deteriorating scheduling problem via a hybrid chemical reaction optimization

This study presents a blocking flow shop deteriorating scheduling problem which has a widespread application in manufacturing and service systems. In the investigated problem, there is no buffer between machines, and the actual processing time of jobs on each machine is described as a linear function of their starting time and normal processing time. In order to deal with this problem more efficiently, this study develops a hybrid chemical reaction optimization algorithm, where some special strategies are developed based on the problem characteristics, for example, solution representation, on-wall ineffective collision, decomposition, inter-molecule ineffective collision, and synthesis reactions. In addition, a variable neighborhood search is designed to strengthen the search ability of the chemical reaction optimization algorithm. Computational simulation experiments on a set of instances and performance comparisons are provided. They show that the proposed algorithm is superior to the standard chemical ...