A Multiobjective Optimization of PCB Prototyping Assembly With OFA Based on the Similarity of Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets

Shop scheduling is a significant factor affecting the ability of manufacturers of printed circuit board (PCB) prototyping assemblies to remain profitable and meet the needs of customers. This scheduling is complicated and involves various factors; thus, the shop scheduling problem of a PCB prototyping assembly is regarded as a multiobjective permutation flow shop scheduling problem (MOPFSP). A mathematical model with four objective functions is built based on the characteristics of a PCB prototyping assembly shop. In this article an aggregation-based approach is designed to aggregate multiple objective function values into the similarity of intuitionistic fuzzy sets (sIFSs). This approach is adopted as a fitness function assignment strategy and is combined with the optimal foraging algorithm (OFA) to build a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm: the OFA based on sIFSs (OFA-sIFSs). To verify the performance of OFA-sIFSs, six congress on evolutionary computation benchmark test functions, ten MOPFSP benchmark instances and a practical problem for a PCB prototyping assembly are solved by OFA-sIFSs and three state-of-the-art algorithms. Three types of similarity measures are evaluated. During the process of testing, four performance metrics, statistical analysis, and business software are employed. The results of this study suggest that OFA-sIFSs can be used to solve the MOPFSP and have better performances compared with the other three algorithms.