An ACO-based approach for inter-cell scheduling with various types of machines

Focusing on the exceptional jobs that need to visit machines in multiple job shop cells in Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS), the inter-cell moves between batch machines and discrete machines is considered and a combinational ant colony optimization (CACO) approach is proposed to solve the problem of scheduling in multiple job shop cells. The CACO uses different heuristic information in assignment, sequencing and batching processes respectively, and updates the pheromone trail when the whole solution is constructed, so that cooperative scheduling is achieved. The experimental results show the CACO has significant advantages comparing with CPLEX with respect to makespan and utilization rate of batch processing machine.