Iterated Greedy Algorithm for Solving a New Single Machine Scheduling Problem

This paper studies a new single machine scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup time, release time, due time and group technology assumption originated from a wire rod and bar rolling process in steel plants. The objective is to find an optimal batch sequence and job sequences of all batches to minimize the number of late jobs. A two-stage mixed integer program is created to describe and solve this problem. The first stage can be solved in a short time by CPLEX while the second one is time-consuming when dealing with large-scale cases. Thus, an iterated greedy algorithm able to solve the second stage fast is developed. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed two-stage mixed integer program can be solved optimally by CPLEX for small-scale cases and the proposed algorithm can effectively solve the second stage for large-scale cases.