Solving Job-Shop Scheduling Problems

by Genetic Algorithm
Mitsuo GEN, Yasuhiro TSUJIMURA and Erika KUBOTA
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Ashikaga Institute of Technology, Ashikaga, 326 Japan
Email: { gen tsujimr}@genlab.ashitech.ac.jp

ABSTRACT the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), hence

the JSP is much harder than the TSP.
Job-shop Scheduling Problem (JSP) is one of
extremely hard problems because it requires very The JSP has N jobs t o be processed on M
large combinatorial search space and the prece- machines and we assume the following:
dence constraint between machines. T h e tradi- 1. No machine may process more than one job
tional algorithm used t o solve the problem is the at a time;
branch-and-bound method, which takes consid-
2. No job may be processed by more than one
erable computing time when the size of problem
machine at a time;
is large. W e propose a new method for solving
JSP using Genetic Algorithm ( G A ) and demon- 3. The sequence of machines which a job visit
strate its efficiency by the standard benchmark is completely specified and has a linear
of job-shop scheduling problems. Some impor- precedence structure;
tant points of G A are how t o represent the sched- 4. Processing times are known;
ules as an individuals and t o design the genetic 5. All jobs must be processed in each machine
operators for the representation in order t o pro- only one time.
duce better results. The JSP is t o find a schedule which minimizes
the total elapsed time. The branch-and-bound
Keywords: job-shop scheduling, genetic algo- method for solving JSP can produce good re-
rithm, genetic representation, genetic operators. sults, but takes considerable computer time even
for the 10 x 10 problem. Thus, it becomes nec-
I. INTRODUCTION essary to use an alternative algorithm, such as
Genetic Algorithm (GA) t o solve the problem,
Job-shop Scheduling Problem (JSP) is among though did not improve the best results from this
the hardest combinational problems and it has method. Davis [6] suggested and demonstrated
been the subject of a significant amount of lit- the feasibility of using a GA in a simple JSP.
erature in the Operations Research areas[l]-[5]. Whitley [7] defined a new edge recombination
The Flow-shop Scheduling Problem (FSP) is a operator for the TSP, although noted that per-
restricted JSP, in which machine sequences are formance degraded when applied to more typical
identical for all jobs. The FSP is identically as scheduling problem. Recently, Bagchi [8] used

0-7803-2129-4/94 $3.00 Q 1994 IEEE

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problem-specific information in the representa-
tion and genetic operators and addressed a lim-
ited form of JSP in which certain batches of tasks
must be scheduled continuously. Also, Nakano
[9] used a conventional GA for the JSP, supple-
mented with algorithms for interpreting and re-
pairing genomes[l0][12][13][14].
In this paper, we introduce our implementa-
tion of GA t o solve JSP and discuss its efficiency
comparing results of numerical experiments us-
ing GA and branch-and-bound method.
11. GENETIC ALGORITHM
,4Genetic Algorithm is based on the evolution
system and hereditary[ll]. In the evolution pro-
cess the population undergoes sexual recombina-
tion (crossover), mutation and natural selection
that select the best individuals for the next gen-
eration, and so on.
The components of GA are as follows:
1. a symbolic representation of a solution;
2. an evaluation function rating solutions in
terms of their fitness;
3. genetic operators which alter the composi-
tion of offsprings through reproduction and
recombination;
4. a way t o create an initial population of so-
lutions;
5 . values of the parameters in GA.
11.1 Representation
There are two different approaches used to
tackle the problem of represent at ion: the direct
represent at ion and the indirect represent at ion.
In the direct representation the schedule it-
self is used as an individual. No decoding pro-
cedure is therefore necessary, but requires com-
plicated recombination operators which should
ensure that the individuals will be feasible. If
1578
one undertakes the burden of developing com-
plicated genetic operators, this scheme has the
advantage of being very direct.
The indirect representation needs interpreting
program to translate it to valid schedule. The
advantage of this scheme is the simplicity of the
individual structure and the operators, and the
drawback is that the genetic algorithm is con-
strained to search only in the space of all possi-
ble permutation of individual’s genes.
We adopt the indirect approach t o represent
the individual. The representation can be viewed
as a kind of enlarged job-list, which contains
N x M genes, where N is the number of jobs and
M is the number of machines. Because every job
is assumed to be processed in each machine only
one time, so every job appears in the job-list ex-
actly M times. As a valid schedule, the process-
ing order of jobs is given for each machine and
the indirect individual then can be translated
into a valid schedule according to the predeter-
mined processing order of machines.
Table 1 Ordering of Machines
Job No. Ordering of Machines
Job 1 3124
Job 2 2314
Job 3 3412
Job 4 1243
For example, in the 4 x 4 problem shown in
Table 1, the list (3,1,2,4,2,1,2,4,3,1,3,4,3,2,1,4)
means that assignment of machine is (3,3,2,1,3,
1,1,2,4,2,1,4,2,4,4,3) and the assignment of jobs
in each machine is shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Ordering of Jobs
Machine No. Ordering of Jobs
M1 4123
M2 2413
M3 3124
M4 3421
11.2 Evaluation Function
During each iteration, the individuals in the
current population are evaluated, using some
measure of fitness. There is a number of charac-
teristics of the evaluation function that enhance
or hinder a evolution program's performance. In
the most optimization applications, fitness is cal-
culated based on the natural objective function.
In our case, the fitness of each individual is eval-
uated as the following total elapsed time of the
corresponding schedule:
where ft(j) is the finishing time of job j.
11.3 Crossover
Because our representation is not the permu-
tation of jobs, the well-known PMX (Partially
Mapped Crossover), CX (Cycle Crossover), OX
(Order Crossover) or ER( Edge Recombination)
crossover operators are not suitable for it due to
the complex mapping relationship.
We propose a partial schedule of exchanging
crossover. First, the partial schedules are picked
out randomly in the parents respectively. The
partial schedule is identified with the same job in
the first and last positions of the partial schedule.
And then we exchange the two partial schedules.
Usually, the partial schedules have the different
length (contains the different number of genes).
The offsprings generated after exchange may be
larger or shorter than the determined length, it is
necessary to delete relatively excessive genes or
to add relatively necessary genes to make them
become to the legal offsprings.
Examp le:
p1= 3 2 1 2 3 4 1 2 4 4 1 3 4 1 2 3
p2=4 1 3 2 1 3 4 1 2 3 4 2 1 2 3 4
1579
o1 = 3 2 i 2 3 4 i 3 2 1 3 4 4 1 3 4 1 2 3
02 = 4 1 2 4 1 2 3 4 2 1 2 3 4
The order of genes in the partial schedule is
important in the structure of the building block.
Thus, we must try to maintain its orders as sim-
ilar as possible with the original schedule.
In schedule ol, we must delete two "3" and one
"1". In the schedule p2, the first "3" of the par-
tial schedule is the first "3" in the entire sched-
ule. Then two "3", the first and second "3" of
o1 can be deleted. At the same form, the "1"
of partial schedule in p2 is the first "1'7 in en-
tire schedule, then the first "1" in ol has been
deleted .
In schedule 0 2 , we must add two "3" and one
"1". The "1" in the partial schedule of pl is the
second "1" in the entire schedule, then one '71"
before as partial schedule in o2 has bee added.
We must add two "3" at any position in 02,that
is, these can be placed before or after the partial
schedule of 02.
01 ~ 2 2 143 2 1 3 4 4 1 3 4 1 2 3
02 =1 4 1 2 43 123342 1234
11.4 Mutation
Although the crossover tries t o improve the
fitness in its offsprings, the chances of offsprings
converged in a local solution are existing. Re-
pairing this situation, there is an escape mecha-
nism called mutation, which changes genes in the
same list randomly with little probability. We
define a mutation operator as follows: generate
randomly two positions in the list and exchange
their genes, and if the two genes are same one,
retry t o select new positions.
Example:
,pl=1243 21422314 1433
01=1244 21422313 1433
11.5 Selection step 1: Generating of the Initial Population
Produce pop-size individuals Si (i=l,. *

The selection procedure used here is the eli-
tist selection. After the population undergoes
crossover and mutation at rates p , and p , re-
spectively, the size of population increases as
+ +
(1 p,) x (1 p,) x pop-size. Within the pop-
ulation, we select the best pop-size individuals
conforming their fitness for next generation.
pop-size) that contain M x N genes between
1 and N , and each job must exactly appeaI
M times.
step 2: Calculation of the Evaluation Func-
tion and Keeping the Best Individual
step 2.1

11.6 Keeping the best individual begin

for j = 1 to n do
jobnum= list b] ;
At each generation, it is presumed that the
execute the job jobnum in respective
fitness of population is improved on the average.
machine with assumptions in Sec-
However, the genetic operators may destroy the
tion 1;
best individual appeared up still now. To elim-
calculate the finishing time f t of this
inate this inconvenience, the best individual is
job;
kept at each generation, that is, all individuals
end
are compared with the best one which had been
kept at the previous generation, and if an indi- f(S;)=max{ f t 1;
end
vidual which is better than the current best in-
dividual, the individual is kept as the new best
one. where n is the length of job-list, list [j] is the
Keeping the best individual is performed as array where the jobs are kept and f(S;) is
follows: the finishing time of individual 5’;.

s* = argmin{f(Si)} (2) step 2.2

si

where arg of a r g m i n is the abbreviation of if mjn{ f( Si)} < ftmin,

t
a r g u m e n t , and means the variable of minimum f t m i n = mjn{f(S;)}
value of f(S;). a

In the last generation the kept individual is

given as the best solution.
111. ALGORITHM
We introduce the algorithm which described
in previous section.
step 0: Setting of Parameters
Specify pop-size as number of individuals,
p , as the rate of mutation, p , as the rate
of crossover and m a x - g e n as the maximum
number of generations . Set g e n = 0 and
f t m i n = 9999.
If g e n = m a s - g e n , stop and output the
earliest finishing time f t m i n and the sched-
ule S*.
step 3: Crossover
begin
i= 0;
while i < pop-size x p , do
select a pair of unmatched parents;
identify two partial schedules;
exchange partial schedules;

1580
 legalize the offsprings; rat.e is 0.4. Figures 1, 2 and 3 show the results of
i=i+2; 20 x 5 job-shop scheduling problems with differ-
end ent parameters of crossover, mutation and pop-
end ulation size.
Table 4 hluth and Thompson’s benchmark
step 4: Mutation
begin Papers (GA)
.a=@
, Nakano (1991)
6x6
55
10x10
965
20x5
1215
while i < pop-size x p , do Yamada (1992) 55 930 1184
pick two positions in the job-list; This method (1994) 55 962 1175
exchange their genes;
i=i+l;
end
end

step 5: Elitist Selection

Select the best pop-size individuals for next
generat ion.

step 6: Update the Generation

+
Set g e n = g e n 1 and return to step 2.

1 I50 I.
IV. NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000
generation
Muth and Thompson’s benchmarks consist of
three problems: 6 x 6, 10 x 10, 20 x 5. The Figure 1 Evolution process with different pa-
historical progress in branch-and-bound method rameters of crossover p,.
and GA together with the results are shown in
Table 3 and Table 4.
1650 i
Table 3 Muth and Thompson’s benchmark
1550 i
I /
0.1

Papers 6x6 10x10 20x5

3
Balas (1969) 55 1177 1231 1450 0.5
McMahon (1975) 55 972 1165 FT
Barker (1985) 55 960 1303 1350
Carlier (1989) 55 930 1165
1250

In our experiment, the algorithms are coded

1150 L
with Turbo C language on Personal Computer
0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000
configurations. The parameters for genetic algo-
generotion
rithms are selected for all trials as follows: the
number of maximum generation is 50000, popu- Figure 2 Evolution process with different. pa-
lation size is 60, mutation rate is 0.3, crossover rameters of mutation p,.

1581

80
/ 60
1150 7[7] Whitley D., T. Starkweather, D’Ann Fuquay:
0 10000 20000 30000 40000
generation
Figure 3 Evolution process with different pa-
rameters of population size pop-size.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed the new approach for
solving Job-shop Schedulig Problem (JSP). JSP
is among the hardest combinational problems
and its resolution with conventional method, as
branch-and-bound method, spent a computa-
tional time reIatively. In this paper, some modi-
fications have bee performed with a Genetic Al-
gorithm(GA) in order t o solve JSP effectively. In
using GA we demonstrate that choosing suitable
representation of individuals, genetic operators
and parameters of evolutional system are an im-
portant step to get better results. Also, we have
shown its efficiency by results on graphics which
are obtained with implemetation in Turbo C.
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