Article ID: | iaor20108691 |
Volume: | 62 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 165 |
End Page Number: | 174 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2011 |
Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
Authors: | Lin Shih-Wei, Lin Rong-Ho, Ying Kuo-Ching, Lee Zne-Jung |
Keywords: | scheduling, heuristics: tabu search, heuristics: genetic algorithms, heuristics: ant systems |
Wafer sorting is usually regarded as the most critical stage in the whole wafer probing process. This paper discusses the wafer sorting scheduling problem (WSSP) with total setup time minimization as the primary criterion and the minimization of the number of machines used as the secondary criterion. Although the need to consider multiple criteria in real-world WSSPs is widely recognized, the present study is the first attempt to investigate this argument with setups consideration. In view of the strongly NP-hard nature of this problem, three meta-heuristic algorithms–an ant colony system algorithm, a Genetic algorithm, and a Tabu search algorithm are proposed. The proposed meta-heuristics are empirically evaluated by 480 simulation instances based on the characteristics of a real wafer testing shop-floor and found to be very effective in terms of finding good quality solutions.