A Discrete Differential Evolution Algorithm for the No-Wait Flowshop Scheduling Problem with Total Flowtime Criterion

In this paper, a discrete differential evolution (DDE) algorithm is presented to solve the no-wait flowshop scheduling problem with the total flowtime criterion. The DDE algorithm is hybridized with the variable neighborhood descent (VND) algorithm to solve the well-known benchmark suites in the literature. The DDE algorithm is applied to the 110 benchmark instances of Taillard (1993) by treating them as the no-wait flowshop problem instances with the total flowtime criterion. The solution quality is evaluated with optimal solutions, lower bounds and best known solutions provided by Fink & Voss (2003). The computational results show that the DDE algorithm generated better results than those in Fink & Voss (2003).