MODIFIED BOTTLENECK-BASED PROCEDURE FOR LARGE-SCALE FLOW-SHOP SCHEDULING PROBLEMS WITH BOTTLENECK

A new bottleneck-based heuristic for large-scale flow-shop scheduling problems with a bottleneck is proposed, which is simpler but more tailored than the shifting bottleneck （SB） procedure. In this algorithm, a schedule for the bottleneck machine is first constructed optimally and then the non-bottleneck machines are scheduled around the bottleneck schedule by some effective dispatching rules. Computational results show that the modified bottleneck-based procedure can achieve a tradeoff between solution quality and computational time comparing with SB procedure for medium-size problems. Furthermore it can obtain a good solution in quite short time for large-scale scheduling problems.

Differential evolution algorithm for hybrid flow-shop scheduling problems

Aiming at the hybrid flow-shop （HFS） scheduling that is a complex NP-hard combinatorial problem with wide engineering background, an effective algorithm based on differential evolution （DE） is proposed. By using a special encoding scheme and combining DE based evolutionary search and local search, the exploration and exploitation abilities are enhanced and well balanced for solving the HFS problems. Simulation results based on some typical problems and comparisons with some existing genetic algorithms demonstrate the proposed algorithm is effective, efficient and robust for solving the HFS problems.

Improved Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm for Solving Lot-Streaming Flow-Shop Scheduling Problem

An improved fruit fly optimization algorithm( iFOA) is proposed for solving the lot-streaming flow-shop scheduling problem( LSFSP) with equal-size sub-lots. In the proposed iFOA,a solution is encoded as two vectors to determine the splitting of jobs and the sequence of the sub-lots simultaneously. Based on the encoding scheme,three kinds of neighborhoods are developed for generating new solutions. To well balance the exploitation and exploration,two main search procedures are designed within the evolutionary search framework of the iFOA,including the neighborhood-based search( smell-vision-based search) and the global cooperation-based search. Finally,numerical testing results are provided,and the comparisons demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed iFOA for solving the LSFSP.

Flow-Shop Scheduling with Transportation Capacity and Time Consideration

Planning and scheduling is one of the most important activity in supply chain operation management.Over the years,there have been multiple researches regarding planning and scheduling which are applied to improve a variety of supply chains.This includes two commonly used methods which are mathematical programming models and heuristics algorithms.Flowshop manufacturing systems are seen normally in industrial environments but few have considered certain constraints such as transportation capacity and transportation time within their supply chain.A two-stage flowshop of a single processing machine and a batch processing machine are considered with their capacity and transportation time between twomachines.The objectives of this research are to build a suitable mathematical model capable of minimizing the maximum completion time,to propose a heuristic optimization algorithm to solve the problem,and to develop an applicable program of the heuristics algorithm.AMixed Integer Programming(MIP)model and a heuristics optimization algorithmwas developed and tested using a randomly generated data set for feasibility.The overall results and performance of each approach was compared between the two methods that would assist the decision maker in choosing a suitable solution for their manufacturing line.

A two-stage flexible flow-shop scheduling problem with m identical parallel machines on one stage and a batch processor on the other stage

This paper considers a hybrid two-stage flow-shop scheduling problem with m identical parallel machines on one stage and a batch processor on the other stage. The processing time of job Jj on any of m identical parallel machines is aj≡ a (j∈N), and the processing time of job Jj is bj(j∈N) on a batch processor M. We take makespan (Cmax) as our minimization objective. In this paper, for the problem of FSMP-BI (m identical parallel machines on the first stage and a batch processor on the second stage), based on the algorithm given by Sung and Choung for the problem of 1| rj, BI | Cmax under the constraint of the given processing sequence, we develop an optimal dynamic programming Algorithm H1 for it in max{O(nlogn), O(nB)} time. A max{O(nlogn), O(nB)} time symmetric Algorithm H2 is given then for the problem of BI-FSMP (a batch processor on the first stage and m identical parallel machines on the second stage).

Energy-Saving Distributed Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Optimization with Dual Resource Constraints Based on Integrated Q-Learning Multi-Objective Grey Wolf Optimizer

The distributed flexible job shop scheduling problem(DFJSP)has attracted great attention with the growth of the global manufacturing industry.General DFJSP research only considers machine constraints and ignores worker constraints.As one critical factor of production,effective utilization of worker resources can increase productivity.Meanwhile,energy consumption is a growing concern due to the increasingly serious environmental issues.Therefore,the distributed flexible job shop scheduling problem with dual resource constraints(DFJSP-DRC)for minimizing makespan and total energy consumption is studied in this paper.To solve the problem,we present a multi-objective mathematical model for DFJSP-DRC and propose a Q-learning-based multi-objective grey wolf optimizer(Q-MOGWO).In Q-MOGWO,high-quality initial solutions are generated by a hybrid initialization strategy,and an improved active decoding strategy is designed to obtain the scheduling schemes.To further enhance the local search capability and expand the solution space,two wolf predation strategies and three critical factory neighborhood structures based on Q-learning are proposed.These strategies and structures enable Q-MOGWO to explore the solution space more efficiently and thus find better Pareto solutions.The effectiveness of Q-MOGWO in addressing DFJSP-DRC is verified through comparison with four algorithms using 45 instances.The results reveal that Q-MOGWO outperforms comparison algorithms in terms of solution quality.

A Layered Energy-Efficient Multi-Node Scheduling Mechanism for Large-Scale WSN

In recent years, target tracking has been considered one of the most important applications of wireless sensornetwork (WSN). Optimizing target tracking performance and prolonging network lifetime are two equally criticalobjectives in this scenario. The existing mechanisms still have weaknesses in balancing the two demands. Theproposed heuristic multi-node collaborative scheduling mechanism (HMNCS) comprises cluster head (CH)election, pre-selection, and task set selectionmechanisms, where the latter two kinds of selections forma two-layerselection mechanism. The CH election innovatively introduces the movement trend of the target and establishesa scoring mechanism to determine the optimal CH, which can delay the CH rotation and thus reduce energyconsumption. The pre-selection mechanism adaptively filters out suitable nodes as the candidate task set to applyfor tracking tasks, which can reduce the application consumption and the overhead of the following task setselection. Finally, the task node selection is mathematically transformed into an optimization problem and thegenetic algorithm is adopted to form a final task set in the task set selection mechanism. Simulation results showthat HMNCS outperforms other compared mechanisms in the tracking accuracy and the network lifetime.

A Novel Scheduling Framework for Multi-Programming Quantum Computing in Cloud Environment

As cloud quantum computing gains broader acceptance,a growing quantity of researchers are directing their focus towards this domain.Nevertheless,the rapid surge in demand for cloud-based quantum computing resources has led to a scarcity,which in turn hampers users from achieving optimal satisfaction.Therefore,cloud quantum computing service providers require a unified analysis and scheduling framework for their quantumresources and user jobs to meet the ever-growing usage demands.This paper introduces a new multi-programming scheduling framework for quantum computing in a cloud environment.The framework addresses the issue of limited quantum computing resources in cloud environments and ensures a satisfactory user experience.It introduces three innovative designs:1)Our framework automatically allocates tasks to different quantum backends while ensuring fairness among users by considering both the cloud-based quantum resources and the user-submitted tasks.2)Multi-programming mechanism is employed across different quantum backends to enhance the overall throughput of the quantum cloud.In comparison to conventional task schedulers,our proposed framework achieves a throughput improvement of more than two-fold in the quantum cloud.3)The framework can balance fidelity and user waiting time by adaptively adjusting scheduling parameters.

Dynamic Offloading and Scheduling Strategy for Telematics Tasks Based on Latency Minimization

In current research on task offloading and resource scheduling in vehicular networks,vehicles are commonly assumed to maintain constant speed or relatively stationary states,and the impact of speed variations on task offloading is often overlooked.It is frequently assumed that vehicles can be accurately modeled during actual motion processes.However,in vehicular dynamic environments,both the tasks generated by the vehicles and the vehicles’surroundings are constantly changing,making it difficult to achieve real-time modeling for actual dynamic vehicular network scenarios.Taking into account the actual dynamic vehicular scenarios,this paper considers the real-time non-uniform movement of vehicles and proposes a vehicular task dynamic offloading and scheduling algorithm for single-task multi-vehicle vehicular network scenarios,attempting to solve the dynamic decision-making problem in task offloading process.The optimization objective is to minimize the average task completion time,which is formulated as a multi-constrained non-linear programming problem.Due to the mobility of vehicles,a constraint model is applied in the decision-making process to dynamically determine whether the communication range is sufficient for task offloading and transmission.Finally,the proposed vehicular task dynamic offloading and scheduling algorithm based on muti-agent deep deterministic policy gradient(MADDPG)is applied to solve the optimal solution of the optimization problem.Simulation results show that the algorithm proposed in this paper is able to achieve lower latency task computation offloading.Meanwhile,the average task completion time of the proposed algorithm in this paper can be improved by 7.6%compared to the performance of the MADDPG scheme and 51.1%compared to the performance of deep deterministic policy gradient(DDPG).

A Novel Predictive Model for Edge Computing Resource Scheduling Based on Deep Neural Network

Currently,applications accessing remote computing resources through cloud data centers is the main mode of operation,but this mode of operation greatly increases communication latency and reduces overall quality of service(QoS)and quality of experience(QoE).Edge computing technology extends cloud service functionality to the edge of the mobile network,closer to the task execution end,and can effectivelymitigate the communication latency problem.However,the massive and heterogeneous nature of servers in edge computing systems brings new challenges to task scheduling and resource management,and the booming development of artificial neural networks provides us withmore powerfulmethods to alleviate this limitation.Therefore,in this paper,we proposed a time series forecasting model incorporating Conv1D,LSTM and GRU for edge computing device resource scheduling,trained and tested the forecasting model using a small self-built dataset,and achieved competitive experimental results.

Performance Prediction Based Workload Scheduling in Co-Located Cluster

Cloud service providers generally co-locate online services and batch jobs onto the same computer cluster,where the resources can be pooled in order to maximize data center resource utilization.Due to resource competition between batch jobs and online services,co-location frequently impairs the performance of online services.This study presents a quality of service(QoS)prediction-based schedulingmodel(QPSM)for co-locatedworkloads.The performance prediction of QPSM consists of two parts:the prediction of an online service’s QoS anomaly based on XGBoost and the prediction of the completion time of an offline batch job based on randomforest.On-line service QoS anomaly prediction is used to evaluate the influence of batch jobmix on on-line service performance,and batch job completion time prediction is utilized to reduce the total waiting time of batch jobs.When the same number of batch jobs are scheduled in experiments using typical test sets such as CloudSuite,the scheduling time required by QPSM is reduced by about 6 h on average compared with the first-come,first-served strategy and by about 11 h compared with the random scheduling strategy.Compared with the non-co-located situation,QPSM can improve CPU resource utilization by 12.15% and memory resource utilization by 5.7% on average.Experiments show that the QPSM scheduling strategy proposed in this study can effectively guarantee the quality of online services and further improve cluster resource utilization.

Improved STNModels and Heuristic Rules for Cooperative Scheduling in Automated Container Terminals

Improving the cooperative scheduling efficiency of equipment is the key for automated container terminals to copewith the development trend of large-scale ships. In order to improve the solution efficiency of the existing spacetimenetwork (STN) model for the cooperative scheduling problem of yard cranes (YCs) and automated guidedvehicles (AGVs) and extend its application scenarios, two improved STN models are proposed. The flow balanceconstraints in the original model are decomposed, and the trajectory constraints of YCs and AGVs are added toacquire the model STN_A. The coupling constraint in STN_A is updated, and buffer constraints are added toSTN_A so that themodel STN_B is built.As the size of the problem increases, the solution speed of CPLEX becomesthe bottleneck. So a heuristic method containing three groups of heuristic rules is designed to obtain a near-optimalsolution quickly. Experimental results showthat the computation time of STN_A is shortened by 49.47% on averageand the gap is reduced by 1.69% on average compared with the original model. The gap between the solution ofthe heuristic rules and the solution of CPLEX is less than 3.50%, and the solution time of the heuristic rules is onaverage 99.85% less than the solution time of CPLEX. Compared with STN_A, the computation time for solvingSTN_B increases by 58.93% on average.

An Elite-Class Teaching-Learning-Based Optimization for Reentrant Hybrid Flow Shop Scheduling with Bottleneck Stage

Bottleneck stage and reentrance often exist in real-life manufacturing processes;however,the previous research rarely addresses these two processing conditions in a scheduling problem.In this study,a reentrant hybrid flow shop scheduling problem(RHFSP)with a bottleneck stage is considered,and an elite-class teaching-learning-based optimization(ETLBO)algorithm is proposed to minimize maximum completion time.To produce high-quality solutions,teachers are divided into formal ones and substitute ones,and multiple classes are formed.The teacher phase is composed of teacher competition and teacher teaching.The learner phase is replaced with a reinforcement search of the elite class.Adaptive adjustment on teachers and classes is established based on class quality,which is determined by the number of elite solutions in class.Numerous experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of new strategies,and ETLBO has a significant advantage in solving the considered RHFSP.

Data-driven Wasserstein distributionally robust chance-constrained optimization for crude oil scheduling under uncertainty

Crude oil scheduling optimization is an effective method to enhance the economic benefits of oil refining.But uncertainties,including uncertain demands of crude distillation units(CDUs),might make the production plans made by the traditional deterministic optimization models infeasible.A data-driven Wasserstein distributionally robust chance-constrained(WDRCC)optimization approach is proposed in this paper to deal with demand uncertainty in crude oil scheduling.First,a new deterministic crude oil scheduling optimization model is developed as the basis of this approach.The Wasserstein distance is then used to build ambiguity sets from historical data to describe the possible realizations of probability distributions of uncertain demands.A cross-validation method is advanced to choose suitable radii for these ambiguity sets.The deterministic model is reformulated as a WDRCC optimization model for crude oil scheduling to guarantee the demand constraints hold with a desired high probability even in the worst situation in ambiguity sets.The proposed WDRCC model is transferred into an equivalent conditional value-at-risk representation and further derived as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming counterpart.Industrial case studies from a real-world refinery are conducted to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.Out-of-sample tests demonstrate that the solution of the WDRCC model is more robust than those of the deterministic model and the chance-constrained model.

MCWOA Scheduler:Modified Chimp-Whale Optimization Algorithm for Task Scheduling in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing provides a diverse and adaptable resource pool over the internet,allowing users to tap into various resources as needed.It has been seen as a robust solution to relevant challenges.A significant delay can hamper the performance of IoT-enabled cloud platforms.However,efficient task scheduling can lower the cloud infrastructure’s energy consumption,thus maximizing the service provider’s revenue by decreasing user job processing times.The proposed Modified Chimp-Whale Optimization Algorithm called Modified Chimp-Whale Optimization Algorithm(MCWOA),combines elements of the Chimp Optimization Algorithm(COA)and the Whale Optimization Algorithm(WOA).To enhance MCWOA’s identification precision,the Sobol sequence is used in the population initialization phase,ensuring an even distribution of the population across the solution space.Moreover,the traditional MCWOA’s local search capabilities are augmented by incorporating the whale optimization algorithm’s bubble-net hunting and random search mechanisms into MCWOA’s position-updating process.This study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach using a two-story rigid frame and a simply supported beam model.Simulated outcomes reveal that the new method outperforms the original MCWOA,especially in multi-damage detection scenarios.MCWOA excels in avoiding false positives and enhancing computational speed,making it an optimal choice for structural damage detection.The efficiency of the proposed MCWOA is assessed against metrics such as energy usage,computational expense,task duration,and delay.The simulated data indicates that the new MCWOA outpaces other methods across all metrics.The study also references the Whale Optimization Algorithm(WOA),Chimp Algorithm(CA),Ant Lion Optimizer(ALO),Genetic Algorithm(GA)and Grey Wolf Optimizer(GWO).

A Cooperated Imperialist Competitive Algorithm for Unrelated Parallel Batch Machine Scheduling Problem

This study focuses on the scheduling problem of unrelated parallel batch processing machines(BPM)with release times,a scenario derived from the moulding process in a foundry.In this process,a batch is initially formed,placed in a sandbox,and then the sandbox is positioned on a BPM formoulding.The complexity of the scheduling problem increases due to the consideration of BPM capacity and sandbox volume.To minimize the makespan,a new cooperated imperialist competitive algorithm(CICA)is introduced.In CICA,the number of empires is not a parameter,and four empires aremaintained throughout the search process.Two types of assimilations are achieved:The strongest and weakest empires cooperate in their assimilation,while the remaining two empires,having a close normalization total cost,combine in their assimilation.A new form of imperialist competition is proposed to prevent insufficient competition,and the unique features of the problem are effectively utilized.Computational experiments are conducted across several instances,and a significant amount of experimental results show that the newstrategies of CICAare effective,indicating promising advantages for the considered BPMscheduling problems.

AGV Scheduling Optimization of Automated Port Based on Disruption Management

The recent rapid development of China’s foreign trade has led to the significant increase in waterway transportation and automated container ports. Automated terminals can significantly improve the loading and unloading efficiency of container terminals. These terminals can also increase the port’s transportation volume while ensuring the quality of cargo loading and unloading, which has become an inevitable trend in the future development of ports. However, the continuous growth of the port’s transportation volume has increased the horizontal transportation pressure on the automated terminal, and the problems of route conflicts and road locks faced by automated guided vehicles (AGV) have become increasingly prominent. Accordingly, this work takes Xiamen Yuanhai automated container terminal as an example. This work focuses on analyzing the interference problem of path conflict in its horizontal transportation AGV scheduling. Results show that path conflict, the most prominent interference factor, will cause AGV scheduling to be unable to execute the original plan. Consequently, the disruption management was used to establish a disturbance recovery model, and the Dijkstra algorithm for combining with time windows is adopted to plan a conflict-free path. Based on the comparison with the rescheduling method, the research obtains that the deviation of the transportation path and the deviation degree of the transportation path under the disruption management method are much lower than those of the rescheduling method. The transportation path deviation degree of the disruption management method is only 5.56%. Meanwhile, the deviation degree of the transportation path under the rescheduling method is 44.44%.

Research on Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Based on Improved Two-Layer Optimization Algorithm

To improve the productivity,the resource utilization and reduce the production cost of flexible job shops,this paper designs an improved two-layer optimization algorithm for the dual-resource scheduling optimization problem of flexible job shop considering workpiece batching.Firstly,a mathematical model is established to minimize the maximum completion time.Secondly,an improved two-layer optimization algorithm is designed:the outer layer algorithm uses an improved PSO(Particle Swarm Optimization)to solve the workpiece batching problem,and the inner layer algorithm uses an improved GA(Genetic Algorithm)to solve the dual-resource scheduling problem.Then,a rescheduling method is designed to solve the task disturbance problem,represented by machine failures,occurring in the workshop production process.Finally,the superiority and effectiveness of the improved two-layer optimization algorithm are verified by two typical cases.The case results show that the improved two-layer optimization algorithm increases the average productivity by 7.44% compared to the ordinary two-layer optimization algorithm.By setting the different numbers of AGVs(Automated Guided Vehicles)and analyzing the impact on the production cycle of the whole order,this paper uses two indicators,the maximum completion time decreasing rate and the average AGV load time,to obtain the optimal number of AGVs,which saves the cost of production while ensuring the production efficiency.This research combines the solved problem with the real production process,which improves the productivity and reduces the production cost of the flexible job shop,and provides new ideas for the subsequent research.

A Distributionally Robust Optimization Scheduling Model for Regional Integrated Energy Systems Considering Hot Dry Rock Co-Generation

Hot dry rock(HDR)is rich in reserve,widely distributed,green,low-carbon,and has broad development potential and prospects.In this paper,a distributionally robust optimization(DRO)scheduling model for a regionally integrated energy system(RIES)considering HDR co-generation is proposed.First,the HDR-enhanced geothermal system(HDR-EGS)is introduced into the RIES.HDR-EGS realizes the thermoelectric decoupling of combined heat and power(CHP)through coordinated operation with the regional power grid and the regional heat grid,which enhances the system wind power(WP)feed-in space.Secondly,peak-hour loads are shifted using price demand response guidance in the context of time-of-day pricing.Finally,the optimization objective is established to minimize the total cost in the RIES scheduling cycle and construct a DRO scheduling model for RIES with HDR-EGS.By simulating a real small-scale RIES,the results show that HDR-EGS can effectively promote WP consumption and reduce the operating cost of the system.

Age of Information Based User Scheduling and Data Assignment in Multi-User Mobile Edge Computing Networks:An Online Algorithm

This paper investigates the age of information(AoI)-based multi-user mobile edge computing(MEC)network with partial offloading mode.The weighted sum AoI(WSA)is first analyzed and derived,and then a WSA minimization problem is formulated by jointly optimizing the user scheduling and data assignment.Due to the non-analytic expression of the WSA w.r.t.the optimization variables and the unknowability of future network information,the problem cannot be solved with known solution methods.Therefore,an online Joint Partial Offloading and User Scheduling Optimization(JPOUSO)algorithm is proposed by transforming the original problem into a single-slot data assignment subproblem and a single-slot user scheduling sub-problem and solving the two sub-problems separately.We analyze the computational complexity of the presented JPO-USO algorithm,which is of O(N),with N being the number of users.Simulation results show that the proposed JPO-USO algorithm is able to achieve better AoI performance compared with various baseline methods.It is shown that both the user’s data assignment and the user’s AoI should be jointly taken into account to decrease the system WSA when scheduling users.