Solving a multi-objective job shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times by a Pareto archive PSO combined with genetic operators and VNS

In this paper, we present a combination of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic operators for a multi-objective job shop scheduling problem that minimizes the mean weighted completion time and the sum of the weighted tardiness/earliness costs, simultaneously. At first, we propose a new integer linear programming for the given problem. Then, we redefine and modify PSO by introducing genetic operators, such as crossover and mutation operators, to update particles and improve particles by variable neighborhood search. Furthermore, we consider sequence-dependent setup times. We then design a Pareto archive PSO, where the global best position selection is combined with the crowding measure-based archive updating method. To prove the efficiency of our proposed PSO, a number of test problems are solved. Its reliability based on some comparison metrics is compared with a prominent multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA), namely non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II). The computational results show that the proposed PSO outperforms the above MOGA, especially for large-sized problems.