Bicriterion optimization for flow shop with a learning effect subject to release dates (Q1722948)

Summary: This paper investigates a two-machine flow shop problem with release dates in which the job processing times are variable according to a learning effect. The bicriterion is to minimize the weighted sum of makespan and total completion time subject to release dates. We develop a branch-and-bound (B\&B) algorithm to solve the problem by using a dominance property, several lower bounds, and an upper bound to speed up the elimination process of the search tree. We further propose a multiobjective memetic algorithm (MOMA), enhanced by an initialization strategy and a global search strategy, to obtain the Pareto front of the problem. Computational experiments are also carried out to examine the effectiveness and the efficiency of the B\&B algorithm and the MOMA algorithm.