Comparing Heuristic, Evolutionary and Local Scheduling *

The choice of search algorithm can play a vital role in the success of a scheduling application. In this paper, we investigate the contribution of search algorithms in solving a real-world warehouse scheduling problem. We compare performance of three types of scheduling algorithms: heuristic, genetic algorithms and local search. Additionally, we assess the influence of heuristics on search performance and check for bias induced by using a fast objective function to evaluate intermediate search results.