Hybrid heuristics based on harmony search to minimize total flow time in no-wait flow shop

This paper proposes an effective harmony search (HS) based heuristics method for the no-wait flow-shop scheduling optimization. The purpose of this paper is to minimize the total flow time. Firstly, the basic HS optimization mechanism, FSSP is presented and the total flow time is calculated by a novel method. Secondly, a largest-order-value rule is used to transform harmony in harmony memory from real vectors to job sequence so that the harmony search can be applied for FSSP. Improvising rule of new harmony is expatiated and high effective algorithm parameters are set for optimization object. Thirdly, HS and Insert-and interchange-based neighbor search, is proposed to solve the FSSP. At last, simulations and comparisons demonstrate the efficiency, effectiveness and robustness of harmony search algorithm for no-wait FSSP.