Whale Optimization Algorithm for Job Scheduling Problem

Abstract

Meta-heuristics are widely used methods in OR literature. Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) is one of these meta-heuristic methods which is recently developed. The objective of this study is to find the best possible job schedule while minimizing the make-span (i.e. the length of time elapsed from the beginning of first job to the end of the last job.) of the system. This problem is initially solved by using Optimization Programming Language namely CPLEX Studio IDE 20.1.0. Then WOA which is a current meta-heuristic used to solve the same problem. Some toy instances of different sizes are created and the results obtained by using CPLEX and WOA are compared. Although in some studies in the literature WOA is used to solve job shop scheduling problems there is not a study which uses WOA as a solution methodology for parallel machine job scheduling problem with machine eligibility consideration to the best of our knowledge. Thus the main contribution of this study is to include machine eligibility to the conventional job scheduling problem and to use WOA while solving the corresponding problem. © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.