An Intelligent Search Strategy for Solving the Three-machine Flow-shop Scheduling Problem

J.P.-O. Fan (Australia)

Keywords

Heuristic search, flow-shop, SLA*

Abstract

This paper describes the development of an intelligent search strategy for solving the three-machine flow-shop scheduling problem. The method involved is based on a heuristic search algorithm SLA* (Search and Learning A*) which was derived and improved from the IDA* (Iterative Deepening A*) algorithm developed by Korf in 1985. In addition to solving the three-machine flow-shop scheduling problem, we have also developed an important improvement related to the calculation of heuristic estimates during the search process. The development of this algorithm will contribute significantly to software development for many industrial problems especially in production scheduling, shop floor scheduling, load balancing in operating systems and reducing congestion in data communication.

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