A No-Wait Flowshop Scheduling Heuristic to Minimize Makespan

Author(s): Chandrasekharan Rajendran

Source: The Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Apr., 1994), pp.
472-478
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals on behalf of the Operational Research Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2584218
Accessed: 11-03-2020 06:08 UTC

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 J. Opl Res. Soc. Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 472-478 0160-5682/94 $9.00+0.00
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved Copyright (?) 1994 Operational Research Society Ltd

A No-wait Flowshop Scheduling Heuristic to

Minimize Makespan
CHANDRASEKHARAN RAJENDRAN
Indian Institute of Technology, India

The scheduling problem in the no-wait or constrained flowshop, with the makespan objective, is
considered in this article. A simple heuristic algorithm is proposed on the basis of heuristic
preference relations and job insertion. When evaluated over a large number of problems of various
sizes, the solutions given by the proposed heuristic are found to be fairly accurate and much superior
to those given by the two existing heuristics.

Key words: flowshop, heuristics, scheduling

INTRODUCTION

In many flowshops, there exists a constraint that once the processing of a job begins,
subsequent processing must be carried out with no delay in the passage of the job from
machine to machine. If necessary, the start of job processing is delayed on the first machine
so that the job need not wait for processing on subsequent machines. Such a flowshop can be
termed as the 'constrained flowshop' or 'no-wait flowshop'. Some typical situations are
encountered in chemical processing, metal processing and hot-metal rolling industries. Apart
from these shops, we can also model the Just-In-Time (JIT) Manufacturing Systems or Pull
Systems as no-wait flowshops since, essentially in these manufacturing systems, the flow of
jobs is continuous with no in-process inventory. Hence, the modelling of no-wait flowshops
assumes significance in the context of these emerging manufacturing systems.
The two-machine, no-wait flowshop problem has been solved using a polynomial time
algorithm by Gilmore and Gomory1. Reddi and Ramamoorthy2 and Wismer3 were the first to
solve the m-machine, no-wait flowshop problem with makespan objective. Bonney and
Gundry4, and King and Spachis5 have developed heuristics to minimize makespan. However,
the NP-completeness of the no-wait flowshop problem has been proved by Papadimitriou and
Kanellakis6 and Rock7. In addition, Adiri and Pohoryles8 and Szwarc9 have also investigated
the theoretical aspects of the no-wait flowshop. With the objective of minimizing total
flowtime, Van Deman and Bakerl have proposed a branch-and-bound algorithm. Rajendran
and Chaudhuri"1 have proposed a tighter lower bound on flowtime. In addition, they also
proposed two efficient heuristic algorithms to minimize total flowtime.
In this article, we consider the no-wait flowshop scheduling problem with the objective of
minimizing makespan and propose a heuristic algorithm. The proposed heuristic, as well as
the existing two heuristics of Bonney and Gundry4 and King and Spachis5 are evaluated over
a large number of problems of various sizes. The results of the computational experience are
also reported.

TERMINOLOGY AND PROBLEM FORMULATION

Let

n = the number of jobs to be scheduled;

m = the number of machines in the flowshop;
t.. = the processing time of job i on machine];

Correspondence: C. Rajendran, Division of Indlustrial Engineering and Management, Department of Humanitie

Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras 600 036, India

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 C. Rajendran -A No-wait Flowshop Scheduling Heuristic to Minimize Makespan

J=- {1,2, ... , n} ;

a = the set of jobs that have already been scheduled;
[i] = job found in the ith position of a sequence or array;
dik = the minimum delay on the first machine between the start of job i and job k,
rendered necessary by the no-wait condition.

Matrix [D] of the dik values can be calculated as given in Reference 3. Suppose we denote
t[iij as the processing time on machine j of the job found in the ith position of a given
sequence with n jobs, and likewise, d[i][i] as the delay between the start of two consecutive
jobs found in the (i - 1)th and ith positions of the sequence. We have the makespan of the
sequence given by:
n III

M = E d[i-1][i] + E t[n]j] (1)

i=2 j=l

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROPOSED HEURISTIC ALGORITHM

An inspection of (1) reveals that both the adjacent inter-job delays and the process times of
the job found in the last position of the schedule influence the makespan of any sequence. It
is therefore evident that in order to minimize makespan:
(a) the adjacent jobs should 'match' as much as possible so that inter-job delays be
minimized; and that
(b) the last job should have short processing times.

In addition, while we can infer, for the two-machine scheduling problem from Johnson12, that
the jobs with increasing trend (or positive trend) in processing times are processed (or
scheduled) ahead of jobs with decreasing trend (or negative trend) in process times in order
to minimize makespan, there is no formal proof of this extension to the m-machine flowshop
problem. However, we still use this extension in our proposed heuristic in view of its possible
potential to yield a schedule with reduced makespan. It is also evident that in the m-machine
flowshop problem, it is generally difficult to infer whether a job has an increasing trend in
process times or not.
We now propose some means of 'quantifying' these factors so that they can be incorporated
in a heuristic algorithm.
(a) We define a term, Pi, for job i, where ieJ, given by
m

Litij
P = (2)
m

E tij
j=x
If Pi - (1 + m)/2 (both the expressions computed as real values), then job i can be
termed as having an increasing trend in process times, and that if Pi < (1 + m)/2, then job
i can be termed as having a decreasing trend in process times. It can be noted that Pi will
be in the interval 1 to m, and that the value (1 + m)/2, the middle point of the interval,
has reasonable, although arbitrary, character. We form A = {il Pi , (1 + m)/2, i e J} and
B = {il Pi < (1 + m)/2, i e J}.
(b) Let us discuss the way of matching the jobs in jobset A. Since we start with a null
schedule with all machines free, we need to build up the schedule from the jobs in this
jobset in a smooth and gradually increasing manner. In order to achieve this, we have to
consider the completion time of a job on all machines. Keeping these factors in mind, we
develop the following heuristic preference rule.
Suppose we have a partial schedule a (wherein all jobs exhibit an increasing trend in
process times) and its completion time on machine 1 is denoted by q(u, 1). When job i'
belonging to A is appended to a, we can call the resultant partial schedule as vi'. A weak

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 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 45, No. 4

lower bound on the completion time of ai' (or job i') for machine j is given by

LB(ai', j) = q(a, 1) + ti,p. (3)

p=l

The sum of the lower bounds on the completion time of ai' for m machines is given by
in

Si, = , LB(ai', j) (4)

j=1

in

=n*q(cr, 1) + (m - j + 1)t1,j. (5)

j=1

We now propose the following heuristic preference relation:

ai' is preferred to ok', where P and k' E A, if Si, S k (6)

or equivalently if
in i~~~~~~~~n

(Mn-j + 1)ti,j > (m-j + l)tk'j. (7)

j=1 j=1

Suppose we let Ti,

Ti7 ' Tk. (8)

This deduction leads to t

an increasing trend in process times, obtained by rank-ordering of these jobs in the
ascending order of value of Tit, starting from the null schedule and appending the jobs
one by one on the basis of the value Ti,.
(c) Let us now discuss the means of matching the jobs in the jobset exhibiting a decreasing
trend in process times. Since the jobset with the increasing trend in process times is
already scheduled, we have to match the first job from the jobset (having the jobs with
the decreasing trend in process times) with the last job in the available partial schedule. It
is also to be noted that the last job in the available partial schedule (having jobs with the
increasing trend in process times) will have a large value of the sum of the lower bounds
on completion times on various machines, or equivalently, a large value of Ti. Keeping
these factors in mind, we propose the following heuristic perference relation for those jobs
in the second jobset:

oi" is preferred to ok", where i" and k" E B, if Si - Sk" (9)

or equivalently if
in i

E (m - j + 1)ti j E >(m- i + l)tk"j (10)

j=1 j=1

or if

Tit Tt' (1

In case of any tie while emp

of nl tij, say, T', i.e. while e
with the least value of T! an
the job with the largest value of Tl.

HEURISTIC ALGORITHM

Step 1. Form A ={i i E (1 +m)/2, i EJ}andB ={iI Pi <(1 +tm)/2, i EJ}.

Step 2. Obtain A' - {[i]| T[i] S T[i?l], i = 1, 2, . . ., n(A) - 1 and [i] E A} and B' = {[i] T[i]
? T[i1], i = 1, 2, . .., n(B) - 1 and [i] E B} and use T' for tie-breaking. In other
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 C. Rajendran-A No-wait Flowshop Scheduling Heuristic to Minimize Makespan

words, we rank order the jobs in A in the ascending order of value of Ti and those
in B in descending order of value of Ti. Append B' to A' to get an initial array of
jobs I.
Step 3. Remove the first job in I and place it as the seed job. This forms the partial
schedule a with n', the number of jobs in a, equal to 1. Update the contents of I.
Step 4. Remove the job found first in I and insert it in the pth position of the available
partial schedule a, where (n' + 1)/2 s- p - (n' + 1). Evaluate all the resultant
partial schedules with respect to makespan using (1) and choose the partial schedule
with the least makespan. The chosen partial schedule becomes the new and updated
a with n' = n' + 1.
Step 5. Return to Step 4 if I is not exhausted; otherwise STOP since a complete schedule a
is built up. Compute the makespan of this schedule using (1).

A numerical illustration is given in the appendix.

COMPUTATIONAL EXPERIENCE

The proposed heuristic algorithm, and the existing heuristics of Bonney and Gundry4 and
King and Spachis5 have been programmed in FORTRAN on a 7580E Siemens System. The
experimentation has been carried out in two phases: first, 600 problems with 6, 7, 8 and 9
jobs and the number of machines varying from 5 to 25, have been generated and solved by all
three heuristics. These problems have also been optimally solved using Wismer3. The
processing times of jobs have been generated randomly from a rectangular distribution
ranging from 1 to 99. Evidence exists that such a distribution provides the more difficult
problems to be solved (Campbell et al.13 and Dannenbring14). The larger-sized problems could
not be solved optimally because of their requirement of excessive CPU time and computer
memory, a phenomenon associated with NP-complete problems. All the heuristics under
comparison are evaluated on the basis of percentage deviation from the optimal solution.
Table 1 contains the results of such an evaluation of various heuristic procedures.

TABLE 1. Evaluation of the heurisitic solutions against the optimal solution

Number of Number of Number of Proposed heuristic Bonney and Gundry's King and Spachis'
jobs stages problems algorithm heuristic4 heuristic5

Mean absolute percentage error

6 5 30 1.0960 11.3214 13.9208

10 30 1.7827 10.8327 11.2471
15 30 1.8537 9.2181 9.4908
20 30 1.4560 8.2542 9.8814
25 30 2.2183 8.1067 7.6436

7 5 30 1.9807 12.1536 15.1025

10 30 2.2796 9.7692 11.2918
15 30 2.4440 10.2506 12.7496
20 30 1.7710 9.1785 10.3127
25 30 2.6213 9.2512 9.6149
8 5 30 2.4495 12.9562 16.3924
10 30 2.5863 11.3074 14.1674
15 30 2.8763 12.3305 13.5290
20 30 2.3183 10.1224 10.9237
25 30 2.9946 9.9256 10.2126

9 5 30 3.1072 14.0221 18.1718

10 30 3.2905 13.5677 15.8186
15 30 3.4828 13.1445 14.2802
20 30 3.1764 11.6792 11.0145
25 30 3.5487 10.9508 10.8921

The second phase of experimentation has been carried out for 600 large-sized flowshop
problems having 10, 20, 30 and 40 jobs with the number of machines varying from 5 to 25.

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 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 45, No. 4

The heuristics are relatively evaluated as follows:

(heuristic solution - best heuristic solution) x 100

best heuristic solution

Table 2 contains the results of relative evaluation of the heuristics and the CPU time required
by the heuristics for various problems.

TABLE 2. Relative evaluation of the heuristic solutions against the best heuristic solution (mean relative percentage error)
and the CPU time requirement

Number of Number of Number of Proposed heuristic Bonney and Gundry's King and Spachis'
jobs stages problems algorithm heuristic4 heuristic5

Error Time Error Time Error Time

10 5 30 0 0.005 12.34 0.003 14.98 0.007

10 30 0.12 0.007 10.23 0.003 9.70 0.008
15 30 0.07 0.008 8.16 0.004 8.71 0.009
20 30 0 0.010 9.59 0.004 8.95 0.010
25 30 0.10 0.011 8.85 0.005 9.99 0.011
20 5 30 0 0.021 11.91 0.005 13.95 0.036
10 30 0 0.028 13.96 0.006 12.39 0.040
15 30 0 0.034 13.72 0.007 11.36 0.044
20 30 0 0.040 13.48 0.008 10.43 0.048
25 30 0 0.047 11.66 0.009 9.77 0.050
30 5 30 0 0.053 12.29 0.008 12.43 0.102
10 30 0 0.067 15.12 0.010 11.88 0.110
15 30 0 0.081 15.56 0.011 12.76 0.118
20 30 0 0.096 15.98 0.013 11.97 0.126
25 30 0 0.110 15.90 0.015 10.12 0.135
40 5 30 0 0.104 12.89 0.012 10.70 0.221
10 30 0 0.129 16.93 0.014 13.41 0.234
15 30 0 0.155 15.67 0.016 11.26 0.251
20 30 0 0.180 16.79 0.018 11.05 0.265
25 30 0 0.206 16.92 0.020 11.26 0.280

An inspection of the results of evaluation of the heuristics reveals that the proposed
heuristic algorithm provides fairly accurate solutions and it fares much better than the existing
algorithms.

CONCLUSIONS

The scheduling problem in the no-wait or constrained flowshop with makespan objective
has been considered in this article. A simple heuristic algorithm has been developed on the
basis of two proposed heuristic preference relations and job insertion. When evaluated over a
large number of problems of various sizes, the solutions given by the proposed heuristic are
found to be fairly accurate and much superior to those given by the two existing heuristics.

APPENDIX

Consider a flowshop with four jobs and three machines. The processing times of various
jobs on three machines are as follows:

Machine
1 2 3

JOb 1 4 2 5
2 4 3 3
3 2 1 6
4 5 3 2

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 C. Rajendran-A No-wait Flowshop Scheduling Heuristic to Minimize Makespan

The delay matrix [D] is computed as given in Reference 3 and is as follows:

Job
1 2 3 4

Job 1 - 4 8 4
2 4 - 7 4
3 3 2 - 2
4 5 5 7

The sum of process times of jobs 1, 2, 3 and 4 are 11, 10, 9 and 10 respectively. Invoking Step
1 of the heuristic, we first compute Pi for four jobs and obtain P1 = 23/11, P2 = 19/10,
P3 22/9 and P4 = 17/10. We also have (1 + m)/2 as (1 + 3)/2, i.e. 2. Hence, we form A as
{1, 3} and B as {2, 4}. Considering first A, we obtain T1 = 21 and T3 = 14. Hence we get A',
the first ordered set, as {3, 1} by invoking Step 2 of the heuristic. We next consider B and
obtain T2 = 21 and T4 = 23. Invoking Step 2 of the heuristic, we get the second ordered
jobset, B', as {4, 2}. We now append B' to A' to get I as {3-1-4-2}. From now on, the
heuristic progresses as follows:

or n' Job chosen Generated partial Computed makespan Chosen partial

for appending schedule (using (1)) schedule

{3} 1 1 {13} 17
{31} 14 {31}
{31} 2 4 {431} 21
{341} 18
{314} 17 {314}
{314} 3 2 {3214} 20 {3214}
{3124} 21
{3142} 22

The heuristic schedule is {3214} and its makespan is 20.

Acknowledgements-The author is thankful to the referees for their constructive suggestions to improve the earlier
version of the article.

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