An efficient metaheuristic for the blocking job shop problem with the makespan minimization

In this paper, the blocking job shop problem with the makespan minimization is considered, in which each operation is blocked on the corresponding machine until the machine required by its successive operation is available. A feasible schedule generation method (FSGM) is introduced to obtain the valid schedule of a given sequence by resolving conflicts between every pair of jobs in the sequence. A blocking time transfer procedure is integrated into FSGM to reduce the blocking time on a job. By reducing the blocking time, the solution obtained can be further improved. A complete local search with memory is proposed to aim for the sequence which can lead to the optimal schedule. The computational results show that the proposed algorithm can perform effectively and efficiently.