A Policy-Based Meta-Heuristic Algorithm for Energy-Aware Distributed No-Wait Flow-Shop Scheduling in Heterogeneous Factory Systems
Fuqing Zhao, Lei Song, Tao Jiang, Ling Wang, Chenxin Dong
Abstract
In the face of environmental deterioration and global climate change, the concept of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking has gained prominence as a means to balance development and environmental preservation worldwide. Energy-aware scheduling is becoming the key scenario for environment conservation in manufacturing. This study focuses on addressing the energy-aware distributed no-wait flow-shop scheduling problem in a heterogeneous factory system (EDNWFSP-HFS) to minimize total energy consumption (TEC) and total tardiness (TTDs). A mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is formulated and a policy-based meta-heuristic algorithm (MHA-PG) is specifically designed to solve EDNWFSP-HFS. First, the optimal allocation rules based on random sequence (OAR-RS) are designed to initialize the population. Second, a policy-based method is employed to guide the algorithm toward making a better decision. Third, the energy-saving strategy considering specific knowledge of EDNWFSP-HFS is summarized to further optimize the feasible solution. Extensive simulations are conducted, comparing the performance of MHA-PG against several state-of-the-art algorithms. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the competing approaches in solving EDNWFSP-HFS, indicating its superior performance and effectiveness.