An Optimal Algorithm for a Class of Parallel Machines Scheduling Problem

This paper considers the parallel machines scheduling problem where jobs are subject to different releas etimes. A constructive heuristic is first proposed to solve the problem in a modest amount of computer time. In general, the quality of the solutions provided by heuristics degrades with the increase of the probiem‘s scale. Combined the global search ability of genetic algorithm, this paper proposed a hybrid heuristic to improve the quality of solutions further. The computational results show that the hybrid heuristic combines the advantages of heuristic and genetic algorithm effectively and can provide very good solutions to some large problems in a reasonable amount of computer time.