An efficient hybrid heuristic for makespan minimization in permutation flow shop scheduling

This paper considers the permutation flow shop scheduling problem with the objective of minimizing the makespan. A new hybrid heuristic, based on simulated annealing and an improvement heuristic, is presented. The proposed hybrid heuristic uses simulated annealing in conjunction with the constructive heuristic of Nawaz et al. (Omega 11:91–95, 1983). Computational experiments carried out with the benchmark problems of Taillard (Eur J Oper Res 64:278–285, 1993) show that the proposed method produces solutions that are mostly superior to those obtained with five state-of-the-art approaches. Statistical tests of significance are used to verify the improvement in solution quality.