Dear editor,

We are grateful for the comments, suggestions and shortcomings highlighted by the
reviewers. In order to improve the quality of the paper to the focus of Expert Systems
with Applications. We try to adequate the paper to the comments pointed out by the
reviewers. The corrections and answers of the comments can be seen as follows:

Reviewers' comments:
Reviewer #1: This paper is a literature review of the blocking flow shop scheduling
problem. This problem has attracted the interest of several authors in recent years
who have proposed different heuristic procedures to solve the problem under a
given criterion and, sometimes, under some additional constraint. Articles about
literature review can help to summarize, analyse and classify paper dealing with a
specific problem and they can help identifying what has been done and possible
future lines of research. However, in this case the revision is very poor for many
reasons and, therefore, I do not see which is the contribution of this paper. It only
provides a list of papers, classified only according to the performance criterion
considered. Moreover, for each criterion, a list of papers is provided, following
chronological order, with only few words about the method proposed. In this case
the chronological order does not make sense because does not help to identify,
easily, the papers dealing exactly with the same conditions (constraints) which, at
least, could help other researchers to find those papers which are of their interest.
Additionally, most of the papers propose different methods to solve problems but
this review do not help to say which one is better, because the author/s only say the
type of the algorithm proposed and the list of algorithms outperformed by it. 
It is necessary to analyse the papers, to provide some insights to know why one
algorithm is better than other more than know to which other algorithms
outperforms, which sometimes it is not as clear as the authors claim. Hence, other
possible classification of the papers could be according the type of algorithm. At
least, each group of algorithms, could provide an evolution of this methods or
alternative operators proposed to increase the performance. A comprehensive
literature review has to classify and to analyse the papers according to several
criteria (performance criteria, constraints, both, type of algorithm...) and analyse
the papers to do some contributions to the state of the art. 
Answer: Firstly, we thank the reviewer for all the suggestions and comments pointed
out by our paper. We considered each comment as a great opportunity to improve the
quality of the paper. In view of this comments, mainly, to bring to light the contribution
of each paper for the blocking flow shop scheduling problem area, we carried out some
changes in the structure and in the content of manuscript. In view of the suggestions and
comments of the reviewers, we solve to restructure some sections of the paper. First,
Section of the m-machine flow shop scheduling problem with makespan minimization
was organized in order to classify the publications according to common adopted
problems. As Reviewer 1 pointed out, the first version of the manuscript followed a
chronological order, but given the content of the sections, it would not make sense to do
it because it did not help to identify the papers that deal with the same constraints. Thus,
we solve to divided the section that classify and review problems that adopted Cmax
mono-function objective in four subsections: a) F m|block|Cmax ; b) F m|block , βi|Cmax ; c)

F m| RCB,block or/and RCb *, βi|Cmax and; d) F m|b j , j+1 , βi|Cmax . Additionally, a new
section was opened, dedicated to stochastic objective functions. Thus, we consider it
makes sense dispose the papers in chronological order. We think that this can facilitate
the readers to find the papers which are of their interest. Regarding the content, we
thank Reviewer 1 for the comment. It was important to us to add more relevant content
to the text. We take the time to review to analyze all the papers and to add to the
manuscript the operators and factors that differentiate the solution methods. In the new
version of the manuscript, new information about the operators and structure of the each
part of the algorithms were presented in order to bring to the audience, a more detailed
vision of the factors that determined the structure of the algorithms. Thus, for
publications that considered solution methods, mainly, heuristic methods, we dedicated
the content of the review sections to describe with more details the main elements of the
method. For exact methods, we give some directions of how lower bounds and
dominance rules were developed. For constructive heuristics, the phases of the
heuristics are described with more details. For metaheuristics and local searches, we
dedicated some lines to describe the basic structure of the algorithm in order to
introduce what the authors added and developed in their proposed methods. For
example, a basic description of the structure of TS is done in the first publication
disposed in the text that considers the proposition of this metaheuristic. Thus, we
dedicated some lines to describe what the authors developed in their proposed TS, based
on the basic structure. In view of the suggestions about a new classification of the
papers according to the type of algorithm, a new table was generated to group similar
algorithms and it can be seen in the section of Results and discussions. In this new table,
we dispose the type of algorithm, the problem adopted and the respective references.
The new version of the paper can be seen in the attached file. Modifications can be seen
highlighted in red.

Other comments about the paper:

The introduction should mention all type of blocking constraint. In this part only
the zero buffer limitation is explained. 
Answer: We thank Reviewer 1 by this comment. In order to make more clear the types
of blocking, we added in Introduction. Another reason of the occurrence of blocking in
a production system is the production technology itself, e.g., the temperature or other
characteristics of the materials requires that the job remains in the machine to avoid its
deterioration. Additionally, we presented some examples of this kind of blocking. The
modification of this part of the introduction can be seen highlighted in red in the new
version of the manuscript in the attached file.

The mathematical model described is only for the classical blocking flow shop. Is
there any change for RSb, RCb and RCb* versions?
Answer: We thank Reviewer 1 by this comment. In fact there is a difference in the
completion time computation between RSb (block) constraint and RCB and RCb*
constraints. In view of this comment, we added in the text the mathematical model of
RCb and RCb* constraints. Although the difference between RCb and RCb*, the
completion time computation is the same for both constraints. The modifications can be
seen highlighted in red in Section 2, in the new version of the manuscript.

The final number of references reviewed is not consistent in all the document.
Sometimes there are 99 and other 100. It is necessary to review the format of
references because some appear in capital letters.
Answer: In view of the comments of the other reviewers, we update the review (march
2019) with more papers. In total 111 papers were covered. All the reference formats
were reviewed. Modifications can be seen highlighted in red.
Overall, we hope that the changes made in the new version of the manuscript has made
clear the contribution of the review.

King Regards,

The authors.
Reviewer #2: REFEREE REPORT:
"The blocking flow shop scheduling problem: A comprehensive and conceptual
review"
By Marcelo Seido Nagano & Hugo Hissashi Miyata

The paper proposes a comprehensive study of the literature for the problem of
blocking flow shop scheduling problem. 

GENERAL COMMENTS:
The paper proposes a complete revision of the literature for the problem of
blocking flow shop scheduling problem. The problem being studied is of special
importance for industry and practitioners. In this sense, the authors describe
numerous industrial examples that can be modeled as blocking flow shop
problems. The review proposes a systematized approach to the literature,
classifying the works and obtaining valuable conclusions for the scientific
community, particularly for those who want to introduce themselves in the study
of this problem, by being able to identify which resolution methods are more
suitable for this problem or what type of metric usually brings greater difficulty in
resolution.
En cuanto a la presentación, el trabajo está bien escrito y la literatura está bien
organizado (la revisión está estructurada siguiendo una lógica natural para
problemas de scheduling).

Although the review carried out by the authors covers broad fields of the industry
and many variants of the problem, the authors should consider those blocking flow
shop problems that consider the lot streaming approach to this problem.
Incorporating articles that deal with this type of approach will enrich the work.
Some of these recent works that I can suggest are:
a) Han, Y., Gong, D., Jin, Y., & Pan, Q. K. (2016). Evolutionary multi-objective
blocking lotstreaming flow shop scheduling with interval processing time. Applied
Soft Computing, 42, 229- 245.
b) Gong, D., Han, Y., & Sun, J. (2018). A novel hybrid multi-objective artificial bee
colony algorithm for blocking lot-streaming flow shop scheduling problems.
Knowledge-Based Systems, 148, 115-130.
c) Shao, Z., Pi, D., & Shao, W. (2018). A multi-objective discrete invasive weed
optimization for multi-objective blocking flow-shop scheduling problem. Expert
Systems with Applications, 113, 77-99.
d) Wang, F., Deng, G., Jiang, T., & Zhang, S. (2018). Multi-Objective Parallel
Variable Neighborhood Search for Energy Consumption Scheduling in Blocking
Flow Shops. IEEE Access, 6, 68686-68700.
Answer: Firstly, we thank the reviewer for all the suggestions and comments pointed
out by our paper. We considered each comment as a great opportunity to improve the
quality of the paper. We added all the papers suggested by Reviewer 2. In the new
version of the manuscript, these references can be seen in Sections 3.4 – Multi-objective
based measures and Section 3.5 – Stochastic based measures.

PARTICULAR COMMENTS:
Details that would make it possible to round out the paper better.

a) Incorporating page and line numbering makes the revision easier

b) Section 2. In the scheduling features presentation (<beta> field). It says " Non-
antecipatory", the problem is with the "e".
c) Section 3.1.1. "Branch and Bound" is sometimes written with upper case and
sometimes with lower case. Please, use a single way.
d) Page 12 of the pdf, in the reference of Pan et al (2011) "HS" is undefined at this
point.
Answer: We thank Reviewer 2 for this comment. We added page and line numbering in
the new version of the manuscript. We replace Anticipatory by Antecipatory in Section
2. The term “Branch and Bound”, “Branch-and-Bound and “branch and bound” were
replaced by “branch-and-bound”. Modifications can be seen highlighted in red.

Overall, we hope that the changes made in the new version of the manuscript has made
clear the contribution of the review.

King Regards,

The authors.