In this article we study the tabu search (TS) method in an application for solving an important class of scheduling problems. Tabu search is characterized by integrating artificial intelligence and optimization principles, with particular emphasis on exploiting flexible memory structures, to yield a highly effective solution procedure. We first discuss the problem of minimizing the sum of the set-up costs and linear delay penalties when N jobs, arriving at time zero, are to be scheduled for sequential processing on a continuously available machine. A prototype TS method is developed for this problem using the common approach of exchanging the position of two jobs to transform one schedule into another. A more powerful method is then developed that employs insert moves in combination with swap moves to search the solution space. This method and the best parameters found for it during the preliminary experimentation with the prototype procedure are used to obtain solutions to a more complex problem that considers setup times in addition to setup costs. In this case, our procedure succeeded in finding optimal solutions to all problems for which these solutions are known and a better solution to a larger problem for which optimizing procedures exceeded a specified time limit (branch and bound) or reached a memory overflow (branch and bound/dynamic programming) before normal termination.. These experiments confirm not only the effectiveness but also the robustness of the TS method, in terms of the solution quality obtained with a common set of parameter choices for two related but different problems.
