An artificial immune based algorithm for parallel-machine scheduling with preference of machines

In this paper, an artificial immune based algorithm (AIA) is proposed for production scheduling of aluminum foil factory. The objective function is to minimize the total tardiness. The AIA algorithm has a systematic immune mechanism which mainly is built on the clonal selection and affinity maturation principles of the immune system. Machine-based encoding method is used and earliest due date (EDD) rule is applied to find the better initial antibodies. The antibodies are then separated into memory or suppressive cells by affinity, and the suppressive cells will be eliminated based on the concentration level. Further, crossover and mutation techniques are used to construct antibody proliferation mechanism to obtain superior antibodies. To avoid falling into local optimal solutions, receptor editing mechanism is applied to suppress the worse antibodies and accelerate solution convergence.