ACO-Based Scheduling of Parallel Batch Processing Machines with Incompatible Job Families to Minimize Total Weighted Tardiness

This research is motivated by the scheduling problem in the diffusion and oxidation areas of semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities (fabs), where the machines are modeled as Parallel Batch Processing Machines (PBPM). The objective is to minimize the Total Weighted Tardiness (TWT) on PBPM with incompatible lot families and dynamic lot arrivals, with consideration on the sequence-dependent setup times. Since the problem is NP-hard, Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is used to achieve a satisfactory solution in a reasonable computation time. A number of experiments have been implemented to demonstrate the proposed method. It is shown by the simulation results that the proposed method is superior to the common Apparent Tardiness Cost-Batched Apparent Tardiness Cost (ATC-BATC) rule with smaller TWT and makespan, especially TWT that has been improved by 38.49% on average.

[1]  T. C. Edwin Cheng,et al.  Scheduling jobs with agreeable processing times and due dates on a single batch processing machine , 2007, Theor. Comput. Sci..

[2]  V. Erramilli,et al.  Multiple Orders Per Job Compatible Batch Scheduling , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Electronics Packaging Manufacturing.

[3]  John W. Fowler,et al.  Heuristic scheduling of jobs on parallel batch machines with incompatible job families and unequal ready times , 2005, Comput. Oper. Res..

[4]  John W. Fowler,et al.  Genetic algorithm based scheduling of parallel batch machines with incompatible job families to minimize total weighted tardiness , 2004 .

[5]  Marco Dorigo,et al.  Ant system: optimization by a colony of cooperating agents , 1996, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part B.

[6]  Chen-Fu Chien,et al.  A novel timetabling algorithm for a furnace process for semiconductor fabrication with constrained waiting and frequency-based setups , 2007, OR Spectr..

[7]  M. Mathirajan,et al.  A literature review, classification and simple meta-analysis on scheduling of batch processors in semiconductor , 2006 .

[8]  Lars Mönch,et al.  Machine learning techniques for scheduling jobs with incompatible families and unequal ready times on parallel batch machines , 2006, Eng. Appl. Artif. Intell..

[9]  N. R. Srinivasa Raghavan,et al.  Scheduling Parallel Batch Processors with Incompatible Job Families Using Ant Colony Optimization , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering.