Two-machine flowshop scheduling with bicriteria problem

This paper attempts to solve a two-machine flowshop bicriteria scheduling problem with release dates for the jobs, in which the objective function is to minimize a weighed sum of total flow time and makespan. To tackle this scheduling problem, an integer programming model with N²+3N variables and 5N constraints where N is the number of jobs, is formulated. Because of the lengthy computing time and high computing complexity of the integer programming model, a heuristic scheduling algorithm is presented. Experimental results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm can solve this problem rapidly and accurately. The average solution quality of the heuristic algorithm is above 99% and is much better than that of the shortest processing time rule as a benchmark. A 15-job case requires only 0.018 s, on average, to obtain an ultimate or even optimal solution. The heuristic scheduling algorithm is a more practical approach to real world applications than the integer programming model.