Multicriteria Flow Shop Scheduling Problem - Enterprise Information Systems Design, Implementation and Management: Organizational Applications - page 211

Chapter 14
Multicriteria Flow Shop
Scheduling Problem

Ethel Mokotoff
Alcalá University, Spain

AbstrAct

Quality is, in real-life, a multidimensional notion. A schedule is described and valued on the basis of a
number of criteria, for example: makespan, work-in-process inventories, idle times, observance of due
dates, etc. An appropriate schedule cannot be obtained unless one observes the whole set of important
criteria. The multidimensional nature of the scheduling problems leads us to the area of Multicriteria
Optmization. Thus considering combinatorial problems with more than one criterion is more relevant
in the context of real-life scheduling problems. Research in this important field has been scarce when
compared to research in single-criterion scheduling. Until the late 1980's, only one criterion was con-
sidered in scheduling problems. Furthermore, until the 1990's, most work in the area of multiple criteria
scheduling consists of bi-criteria studies of the single machine case. The proliferation of metaheuristic
techniques has encouraged researchers to apply them to combinatorial optimization problems. The aim
of this chapter is to present a review regarding multicriteria flow-shop scheduling problem, focusing on
Multi-Objective Combinatorial Optimization theory, including recent developments considering more
than one optimization criterion, followed by a summary discussion on research directions.

introduction

contexts, where machines are used to represent
the resources and different operations must be
carried out with them. So, the aim is to find the
schedule that optimizes certain performance
measures. To the complexity that naturally arises
in these problems, considering only one criterion
(Garey & Johnson, 1979), we have to add the
additional complexity that comes from the mul-

In this chapter, we consider a scheduling problem
for which, after more than 50 years of scientific
research, there is an important gap between theory
and practice. Flow-shop problem results in several