Robust scheduling for multi-objective flexible job-shop problems with random machine breakdowns

This study addresses robust scheduling for a flexible job-shop scheduling problem with random machine breakdowns. Two objectives - makespan and robustness - are simultaneously considered. Robustness is indicated by the expected value of the relative difference between the deterministic and actual makespan. Utilizing the available information about machine breakdowns, two surrogate measures for robustness are developed. Specifically, the first suggested surrogate measure considers the probability of machine breakdowns, while the second surrogate measure considers the location of float times and machine breakdowns. To address this problem, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is presented in this paper. The experimental results indicate that, compared with several other existing surrogate measures, the first suggested surrogate measure performs better for small cases, while the second surrogate measure performs better for both small and relatively large cases. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.