Accepted Manuscript: Swarm and Evolutionary Computation BASE DATA

Accepted Manuscript
Ant colony system with a novel Non-DaemonActions procedure for multiprocessor

task scheduling in multistage hybrid flow shop
Mohamed Kurdi
PII: S2210-6502(18)30191-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.swevo.2018.10.012
Reference: SWEVO 461
To appear in: Swarm and Evolutionary Computation BASE DATA
Received Date: 12 March 2018

Revised Date: 30 August 2018
Accepted Date: 24 October 2018
Please cite this article as: M. Kurdi, Ant colony system with a novel Non-DaemonActions procedure for
multiprocessor task scheduling in multistage hybrid flow shop, Swarm and Evolutionary Computation
BASE DATA (2018), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.swevo.2018.10.012.
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Ant colony system with a novel Non-DaemonActions procedure for multiprocessor tasks
scheduling in multistage hybrid flow shop
ABSTRACT
This paper presents an ant colony system with a novel Non-DaemonActions procedure (ACSNDP)
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algorithm for multiprocessor tasks scheduling in multistage hybrid flow shop. A DaemonActions
procedure is an optional component of ant colony optimization (ACO), which integrates problem-
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specific actions that cannot be performed by single ants such as the actions performed by local
search routines. In many applications to hard combinatorial optimization problems, ACO performs
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best when integrated with local search routines because they move the ants’ solutions to their local
optimums. However, such an integration is shown as an effective approach only experimentally, and
does not have any effects on the convergence properties of ACO theoretically, since the validity of
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convergence proofs depends only on the way solutions are constructed and not on the fact that the
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solutions are moved or not to their local optimums. Furthermore, it can be noticed that the traditional
DaemonActions procedure does not interfere in the way solutions are constructed because local
search routines have been always integrated with ACO in a daemon fashion i.e. they have been made
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hidden to the ants, and the ants do not how their solutions have been relocated. Consequently, the
ants may perform limited exploitation (intensification) because they cannot exploit the problem-
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specific knowledge brought by the local search routine in such a way that enables them to construct
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these local optimums by themselves in the upcoming tour. In order to overcome these limitations, a
novel Non-DaemonActions procedure that can interfere positively in the way solutions are
constructed is proposed, which is basically based on the following idea. Iteratively at the end of each
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tour, the local search routine tries to improve the constructed solution, and then if a local optimum
has been found, the ant learns the modifications made by the local search routine on its solution, and
performs the corresponding modifications in the pheromone concentrations and heuristic information
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that will probably enable it to construct this local optimum by itself, in the upcoming tour, before the
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application of the local search over again. If the ant can do that, it will be able to construct more
accurate local optimums in the upcoming tours by repeating the whole process over and over again,
and thus enhance its exploitation capabilities. The proposed algorithm is tested on 700 well-known
benchmark instances, with the proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure, and without it using the
classical alternatives, and also compared with other 12 algorithms well-known in the literature.
Computational results verify the improvements achieved by the proposed procedure, and show the
superiority of the proposed algorithm over 7 of the compared works in terms of solution quality.
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Keywords: Multistage hybrid flow shop; multiprocessor tasks; Ant colony optimization;
DaemonActions procedure; local search; Metaheuristic.
1 Introduction
In manufacturing environments, scheduling is basically related to the problem of

finding an assignment of limited resources to a number of jobs in such a way that some
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performance goals such as a flow time, tardiness, lateness, and makespan can be optimized
[1]. Due to growing competition between manufacturing companies in terms of shorter
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product life cycles, custom-made products, and variable demand pattern, effective scheduling
has become a requirement for survival in the market place [2]. Flow shop problem (FSP) is a
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well-known type of workshops in which a set of jobs flow in the same order through multiple
production stages, where each stage consists of only one processor (machine). Hybrid flow
shop problem (HFSP), also called flexible flow shop problem (FFSP) is an extension of the
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FSP that allows the availability of one or more identical, uniform, or unrelated parallel
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processors in any stage (at least one stage must have more than one processor), as illustrated
in Fig. 1, and thus provides additional flexibility and efficiency for the production system [3].
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HFSP has been widely used in several industrial settings such as airplane engine production,
electronics manufacturing, semiconductors, and petrochemical production [4]. Given its
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essential complexity and practical relevance, HFSP has been addressed by a significant
number of researchers and industrialists since the first HFSP research paper proposed by
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Arthanari and Ramamurthy [5] in 1971. Detailed discussions and classifications of the
relevant research on HFSP can be found in the literature surveys of Ruiz and Vázquez-
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Rodríguez [6], Ribas et al. [7], and Lee and Loong [8]. As stated in these survey papers,
current available research on HFSP with respect to complexity can be classified into three
categories: two-stage, three-stage and multistage (m-stage, where m>3) HFSPs. Meanwhile,
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the solution approaches for solving these HFSPs can be classified into exact algorithms and
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approximation algorithms.
With regard to exact algorithms, Ruiz and Vázquez-Rodríguez [6] pointed out that
branch and bound (B&B) is the most favored one for finding optimal solutions for the HFSP,
but even a relatively simple HFSP such as a two-stage problem with either stage having two
identical processors is NP-hard in the strong sense [9]; therefore, the general efficiency of the
available B&B algorithms is rather bounded. For a detailed discussion and taxonomy of the
B&B algorithms that have been proposed to solve various HFSPs, the reader is referred to the
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literature survey of Kis and Pesch [10]. Since exact algorithms require prohibitive amounts of
computational cost for finding optimal solutions even for moderately sized HFSP, researchers
usually prefer developing approximation algorithms, which do not guarantee finding optimal
solutions, but there is a considerable probability of finding near-optimal solutions in
acceptable computational cost. These approximation algorithms include, but not limited to,
constructive heuristics and iterative (or improvement) heuristics.
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Constructive heuristics are procedures that construct the solutions step by step (job by
job or stage by stage). Guinet et al. [11] proposed a heuristic for the makespan minimization
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in the two-stage HFSP based on Johnson’s rule. Gupta and Tunc [12] applied four heuristics
to minimize makespan for the two-stage HFSP with separable setup and removal times. Lee
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and Vairaktarakis [13] presented a heuristic to minimize makespan for solving the two-stage
HFSP. Riane et al. [14] applied two heuristics to minimize makespan for the three-stage
HFSP. Hunsucker and Shah [15] evaluated the performance of different dispatching rules for
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a constrained HFSP. Kyparisis and Koulamas [16] developed some heuristics to minimize the
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makespan for the HFSP with uniform parallel machines in each stage. [17] Moccellin et al.
proposed constructive heuristics based on priority rules for scheduling HFSP with machine
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blocking and setup times, with the objective of makespan minimization. However,
constructive heuristics are relatively quick, but can easily stagnate in local optimums; on the
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other hand, iterative heuristics are generally slower, but produce solutions of a top quality,
since they have the ability to escape from local optimums by operating iteratively on
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potential solutions [8].

The main research in iterative heuristics for solving HFSP concentrates on
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metaheuristic-based algorithms. Tan et al. [18] proposed a hybrid iterative stage-based

decomposition approach with neighbourhood search techniques for a two-stage HFSP with
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batch processing machines and total weighted tardiness minimization. Shao et al. [19]
presented a hybrid discrete teaching-learning based metaheuristic for solving a no-idle HFSP
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with total tardiness minimization. Jin et al. [20] applied a genetic algorithm (GA) to minimize
makespan for a real-life printed circuit board assembly line, which is a three-stage HFSP.
Besbes et al. [21] developed a GA for makespan minimization in HFSP with non-fixed
availability constraints. Costa et al. [22] presented a novel GA to address the makespan
minimization for a HFSP with parallel batching and eligibility constraints. Choi and Wang
[23] proposed a novel decomposition-based approach, which combines both the shortest
processing time and GA, to minimize makespan for the HFSP with stochastic processing
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times. Wardono and Fathi [24] applied a tabu search (TS) algorithm to minimize makespan in
HFSP with limited buffer capacities. Chen et al. [25] developed a TS algorithm to minimize
makespan for the HFSP with precedence and blocking constraints. Zhang et al. [26] handled
the HFSP with lot streaming and the objective of total flow time minimization using an
effective modified migrating birds optimization (MBO) algorithm. Meng et al. [27] proposed
an improved (MBO) algorithm to handle the same problem, but with the objective of
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makespan minimization. Peng et al. [28] developed an improved artificial bee colony (ABC)
algorithm for a real-world hybrid flow shop rescheduling problem in steelmaking-refining
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continuous casting process, where the solution quality was measured by employing a
weighted sum of six realistic objectives. The no-wait HFSP under makespan and flowtime
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criteria was addressed by Riahi and Kazemi [29] using a hybrid ACO with simulated
annealing (SA) algorithm. A memetic algorithm (MA) was proposed by Tavakkoli-
Moghaddam et al. [30] in HFSP with processor blocking environment. Tang et al. [31]
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proposed a neural network model and algorithm to solve the dynamic HFSP. Zandieh et al.
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[32] applied an immune algorithm (IA) for the HFSP with sequence-dependent setup times.
Li et al. [33] proposed a hybrid fruit fly optimization algorithm (HFOA) to solve the hybrid
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flowshop rescheduling problem with flexible processing time in steelmaking casting systems.
Wang et al. presented [34] novel multidisciplinary approaches to artificial swarm intelligence
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for heterogeneous computing and cloud scheduling. Li et al. [35] developed a discrete ABC
algorithm to solve the multiple resource constrained HFSP in a steelmaking casting
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production system, with the objective of makespan minimization. Marichelvam and Geetha
[36] addressed a bi-objective (makespan and mean flow time) real-industrial HFSP using a
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cuckoo search (CS) algorithm. Bathrinath et al. [37] proposed metaheuristic approaches
(improved versions of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and harmony search (HS)
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algorithms) for solving identical parallel processor problem with the objective of
mınimization of makespan and total tardiness. Han et al. [38] developed an improved NSGA-
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II algorithm for a multi-objective (the delivery time penalty and the load imbalance penalty)
HFSP. Gong et al. [39] presented a novel hybrid ABC algorithm for a multi-objective
(makespan and earliness time) HFSP with blocking lot-streaming. Li et al. [40] applied an
energy-aware multi-objective optimization algorithm (EA-MOA) for solving the HFSP with
consideration of the setup energy consumptions, where two objectives, namely, the
minimization of the makespan and the energy consumptions, were considered
simultaneously. The classical HFSP was handled by the following studies: TS [41], bat
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algorithm (BA) [42], ACO [43], artificial immune system (AIS) [44], novel discrete ABC
[45], hybrid variable neighbourhood search (HVNS) that combines the chemical-reaction
optimization (CRO) and the estimation of distribution (EDA) [46], hybrid PSO and
bottleneck heuristic [47], FOA [48], and improved CS [49].
In this work, the minimization of the makespan for the HFSP with multiprocessor task
(HFSPMT) is considered. HFSPMT is an extension of the HFSP that allows any task within a
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job to be processed by one or more identical processors simultaneously at any stage.
HFSPMT models several real-life industrial settings as for the textile industry, bio-process
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industry, cars manufacturing, parallel computing, distributed systems, real-time machine
vision systems, transportation problems, berth allocation of container terminal, and work-
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force assignment [50]. In the literature so far, 5 heuristic and 23 metaheuristic approaches
have been proposed for this problem with the objective of makespan minimization. The
heuristic approaches are priority rules-based heuristic [51], iterated greedy (IG) [52], parallel
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greedy approach (PGA) [53], discrepancy search heuristic (DS) [54], and the heuristic of
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multistage hybrid flowshops (HMHF) [55]. The metaheuristic approaches are SA [56] [57],
restricted SA (RSA) [58], TS [59], GA [60] [61] [62] [63], ACO [3], PSO [64] [65] [66]
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[67], HS [68] [69], discrete firefly (DF) [70], shuffled frog-leaping algorithm (SFLA) [71],
MA [72], two hybrid algorithms: PSO with TS and PSO with SA [73], hybrid AIS with IG
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[74], AIS based on novel dispatching rules [75], and hybrid ABC [76].
ACO is a well-known metaheuristic approach which has been applied successfully for
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solving many hard combinatorial optimization problems. DaemonActions procedure is an

optional component of any ACO algorithm which is usually used to implement problem-
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specific or centralized actions that cannot be performed by single ants such as a local search
process. In many applications to hard combinatorial optimization problems, ACO performs
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best when integrated with local search routines because they move the ants’ solutions to their
local optimums [77]. However, such an integration is shown as an effective approach only
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experimentally, and does not have any effects on the convergence properties of ACO
theoretically, since the validity of convergence proofs (as presented in [78]) depends only on
the way solutions are constructed and not on the fact that the solutions are moved or not to
their local optimums by a local search routine [79]. This gap between the experimental and
theoretical findings has inspired us to search for a novel Non-DaemonActions procedure that
can interfere (hopefully, positively) in the way solutions are constructed. Generally, it can be
observed that the traditional DaemonActions procedure cannot interfere in the way solutions
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are constructed because local search routines have been always integrated with ACOs in a
daemon fashion i.e. they have been made hidden to ants, and ants do not know how their
solutions have been moved to the new locations (their local optimums); for that reason, the
ants cannot exploit the knowledge brought by the local search routine in such a way that
enables them to construct these local optimums by themselves in the upcoming tour.
Consequently, this may reduce the exploitation (or intensification) capabilities of ACO.
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In this work, in order to overcome the previously discussed limitations of the
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traditional DaemonActions procedure and solve HFSPMT with the objective of makespan
minimization more effectively, a novel Non-DaemonActions procedure is proposed. In the
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proposed procedure, the local search routine moves the ants’ solutions to their local
optimums in the current iteration, but in the meantime informs the ants with the
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corresponding changes in the relative pheromone concentrations and heuristic information,
by which they will probably construct these local optimums by themselves using the state
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transition rule, in the upcoming tour, before the application of the local search routine over
again. If the ants can do that, they will be able to construct more accurate local optimums in
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the upcoming tours by repeating the whole process over and over again, and thus acquire
better exploitation capabilities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that
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considers informing the ants with the improvements made on their solutions by the local
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search routine, and then letting them update the pheromone concentrations and heuristic
information accordingly.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section, HFSPMT
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definition and formulation are presented. Section 3 describes the encoding and decoding
method. In Section 4, the ACSNDP framework is explained. Section 5 reports the
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computational results. The conclusions and further works are provided in Section 6.
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2 Problem definition
HFSPMT with the objective of makespan minimization consists of a set of n jobs,

where each job j (j = 1,...,n) is composed of k tasks, and needs to be processed in the same
order on a series of k production stages. In each stage i (i = 1,...,k) , there are mi identical
parallel processors; while some stages may have only one processor, at least one stage must
have multiple processors. Each task i (i = 1,...,k) of each job j (j = 1,...,n) is processed by a
predefined number of ( sizeij ) processors simultaneously, only once and for a deterministic
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processing time ( Pij ) . Processors might process, at most, one job at a time and without pre-
emption. The objective is to minimize makespan i.e. the maximum completion time of all
tasks in the last stage. The problem can be denoted by FK ( Pm1 , ..., Pm k ) | sizeij | C max using the
classification scheme of Graham et al. [80], and can be modelled as a mixed integer linear
programming (MILP) problem as follows (a revised version of the formulation proposed by
Lin et al. [76]). To simplify the formulation, the following notations are used.
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Parameters:
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n number of jobs
k number of stages
mi number of identical parallel processors at stage i
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pij processing time of job j at stage i
sizeij number of parallel processors required to process job j at stage i
T planning horizon for which the schedule is to be developed
Decision variables:
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Xijt a binary time index, which is equal to 1 if job j is processed at stage i in time
period t and equal to 0 otherwise
Xidjt a binary time index, which is equal to 1 if job j is processed at stage i on processor d
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in time period t and equal to 0 otherwise

Sij starting processing time of job j at stage i
Cij completion time of job j at stage i
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Cmax makespan
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Let job 0 be the dummy initial job. Then, the FK ( Pm1 ,..., Pm k | sizeij | C max can be formulated
as follows.
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Min Cmax
Subject to,
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∑
n
j =1
X ijt sizeij ≤ mi , i = 1,..., k , t = 1,...T , (1)
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∑
n
j =1
X idjt ≤ 1, i = 1,..., k , d = 1,..., mi , t = 1,...T , (2)
C i-1, j ≤ C ij − pij , i = 2,..., k , j = 1,..., n ,

(3)
C ij − S ij + 1 = pij , i = 1, ..., k , j = 1, ..., n ,

(4)
∑
T
t =1
X ijt = pij , i = 1,..., k , j = 1,..., n,
(5)
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S ij ≤ t + T (1 − X ijt ), i = 1, ..., k , j = 1, ..., n, t = 1,..., T ,
(6)
tX ijt ≤ S ij + pij − 1, i = 1, ..., k , j = 1,..., n, t = 1, ..., T ,

(7)
C max ≥ C kj , j = 1,..., n ,
(8)
X ijt ∈ {0,1} , X idjt ∈ {0,1} ,

(9)
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Sij ∈ {1,..., T} , i = 1,..., k , j = 1,..., n, t = 1,..., T ,
(10)
Ci 0 = 0, i = 1,..., k ,
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(11)
Cij ∈ {1,..., T} , i = 1,..., k , j = 1,..., n, t = 1,..., T .
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(12)
Constraint set (1) specifies that the number of processors assigned for each job at each stage
and during each time period should not exceed the number of available processors. Constraint
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set (2) states at most one job can be assigned for each processor at each stage and during each
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time period. Constraint set (3) imposes the condition that no job task can be started until its
preceding task is finished. Constraint set (4) is the starting time constraint, which is taken
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from the processing time requirement. Constraint set (5) represents the time period that each
job at each stage occupies. Constraint set (6) specifies that, at each stage, each job will
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occupy its required number of processors from its starting time at that stage. Constraint set
(7) denotes that, at each stage, each job will occupy its required number of processors until its
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finishing time at that stage. Constraint set (8) gives the makespan. Finally, constraint sets (9)–
(12) define the decision variables.
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An example of a 5×2 HFSPMT is given in Table 1. The data include the number of
identical parallel processors at each stage. For example, m1 = 3 specifies that there are 3
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processors at the first stage. The data also include the processing time and the number of
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processors required at each stage for each job. For example, job 1 must be processed by 2
processors in the first stage for 10 time units, and then by one processor in the second stage
for 15 time units. A possible solution of the 5×2 HFSPMT represented by a Gantt chart is
given in Fig. 2.
3 Encoding and decoding method

In order to describe the encoding and decoding method, the following notations are
introduced. Let = ( , … , ) be a list of the jobs (jobs-permutation) that represents the
processing order of the jobs at a stage i, where
is a job at position j in the list . Further,
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let
be the set of processors on which job
is processed at stage i. If we define =
{ , . . . , } for each stage i, then the corresponding schedule is represented by a processing
order (, ), where = { , . . . , } and = { , . . . , }. For example, the solution of the
5×2 HFSPMT given in Fig. 2 can be represented by = { , } and = { , },
where = { , , , , } and = { , , , , }. The individual lists
and sets
are as follows: = (4,2,5,3,1), = (4,2,3,5,1), = {1,2,3}, =
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{1,2,3}, = {1}, = {2,3}, = {2,3}, = {1,2}, = {1,2}, = {1}, =
{1,2}, = {1}. For more details, please refer to [59].
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Due to the complex nature of HFSPMT, most of the studies suggest decomposing it
into two sequential decision problems: determining the jobs-permutation at the first stage
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by a metaheuristic, followed by a decoding method to generate the jobs-permutations for the
subsequent stages ( , … , ) [65]. Furthermore, several studies such as Oğuz et al. [59],
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Sivrikaya-Şerifoğlu and Ulusoy [60], and Ying and Lin [3] recommend using two-directional
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(i.e. forward and backward) scheduling at the first stage; therefore, the proposed ACSNDP
uses the same approach. That is, the forward schedule is constructed by determining using
an ACS approach, and then ( , … , ) by queuing the jobs by the first-come-first-served
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(FCFS) manner i.e. by arranging them in ascending order according to their completion times
at the previous stage. The sets of processors = { , . . . , } are obtained as follows. The
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jobs at each stage i are handled in the order they appear in the list , by assigning them to the
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first available sizeij parallel processors simultaneously, while respecting the problem
constraints. The tiebreak rule gives preference to the job with the smaller order number. On
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the other hand, the same procedure is applied to the inverse problem to obtain the backward
schedule. A proof of the equivalence between the problem and its inverse can be found in [3].
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4 The proposed ant colony system algorithm

ACS, first proposed by Dorigo and Gambardella [81], is one of the recent versions of
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ACO, which are inspired by the foraging behaviour of real ants. Ants are capable of finding
the shortest path from a food resource to their nest without using visual cues, but by using a
chemical substance called pheromone which serves as a communication media between
them. Initially, since there are no clues (pheromone trails) about the food resources, ants
search the areas surrounding their nests randomly. As soon as an ant finds a food resource, it
carries a portion of food back to the nest, and while walking, it lays pheromone on the ground
in order to remember the path and also guide other ants to the food. Since ants reaching a
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food resource by shorter paths will come back to the nest earlier than ants travelling through
longer paths, the shorter paths will have higher traffic volumes than those of the longer ones,
and thus the pheromone will accumulate more quickly on shorter paths than on longer ones.
Consequently, by means of the accumulated pheromone, the search process becomes more
organized and focused around the good areas because the more pheromone on a path, the
more likely that it will be selected by ants [82]. The described foraging behaviour of ants can
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be used to solve scheduling problems by simulation: the objective function value (e.g.
makespan) corresponds to the quality of the food source (e.g. distance), artificial ants
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searching in search space simulate real ants searching in their environment, and an adaptive
memory corresponds to the pheromone trail [3].
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The pseudocode of ACSNDP is presented in Algorithm 1. As shown in Algorithm 1,
ACSNDP is composed of two steps: the initialization step and the main loop. In the
initialization step, the parameters β , ρ1 , ρ 2 , r0 ,τ 0 , l are set; a colony of l ants are positioned
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on a dummy start job (node); the initial pheromone concentrations are set to small values in
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the range [0,τ 0 ] ; and the heuristic information are set, as proposed by Ying and Lin [3], to
the jobs’ ranking indexing of the selected constructive heuristic (SCH) ȥ at the first stage. In
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the main loop step, each ant repeatedly applies the state transition rule to select the next job
from the set of unvisited jobs, adds it to the currently constructed path (list of jobs-
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permutation at first stage), and update the concentration of pheromone that exists on it by
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applying the local update rule, until a full path (jobs-permutation at first stage) is constructed;
and then, the forward and backward schedules are constructed and the one that has the
minimum makespan is selected. Once all of the ants have terminated their tours, the Non-
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DaemonActions procedure is applied on the iteration-best solution to improve it, and then the
concentrations of pheromone on the visited jobs of each ant are updated once more by
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applying the global updating rule. The main loop step is repeated again until the maximum
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number of tours has been reached [82]. In the following sections, the constructive heuristics
that are used to assign heuristic information to jobs, the state transition rule, the local update
rule, the Non-DaemonActions procedure, and the global update rule are discussed in details.
4.1 Selection of the constructive heuristic

In the original ACS, the heuristic information is defined as the reciprocal of a cost
measure (e.g. distance) from job i to job j. In this study, the heuristic information is changed
to be the job j’s ranking index of the SCH ȥ at the first stage; as proposed by Ying and Lin
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[3], five constructive heuristics: shortest processing time heuristic; shortest final stage’s
processing time heuristic; revised Campbell, Dudek, and Smith heuristic; revised Raghu and
Rajendran heuristic; and revised Palmer’s heuristic are applied on each benchmark instance,
and the one that produces the minimum makespan is selected from them. For more details,
please refer to [3].
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Algorithm 1 Pseudocode of the proposed ACSNDP
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/* Initialization */
t = 0 ; set the parameters β , ρ1 , ρ 2 , r0 ,τ 0 , l ;
Let V be the set of jobs (nodes);
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Place all ants on a dummy start job;
For each edge ( d , e) between the current job d and each other job e ∈V \ d do
Set the initial pheromone concentrations τ de (t ) : U (0,τ 0 ) ; Set the heuristic informationηde (t ) ;
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End For
a
Let x1 (t ) be the path (jobs-permutations at the first stage) constructed so far for an ant a;
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x a (t ) = [ x1a (t ), . . . , xka (t )] the schedule (jobs-permutations at all stages) corresponding to an ant a;
Cmax ( x a (t )) its objective function value;
x g −b (t ) the global-best solution; Cmax ( x g −b (t )) = ∞ ;
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/* Main loop */
Repeat
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i −b i −b
Let x (t ) the iteration-best solution; Cmax ( x (t )) = ∞ ;
For each ant a = 1,..., l do
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x1a (t ) = ∅ ;
Repeat
Determine the next job e ∈V \ x1 (t ) using the state transition rule; x1 (t ) = x1 (t ) ∪ e ;
a a a
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Apply the local updating rule;

Until a full path (jobs-permutation) of the first stage has been constructed
Construct the jobs-permutations for the rest of stages in a FCFS manner for the forward schedule
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xaf (t ) and backward schedule xba (t ) ;

a a
Compute Cmax ( x f (t )) and Cmax ( xb (t )) ;
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Cmax ( x a (t )) = min (Cmax ( x af (t )), Cmax ( xba (t ))) ;

i −b
If Cmax ( x (t )) < Cmax ( x (t )) then
a
x i −b (t ) = x a (t ) ; Cmax ( xi −b (t )) = Cmax ( x a (t )) ; // update the iteration-best solution

End If
End For
Apply the Non-DaemonActions procedure on x i −b (t ) ;
i −b g −b
If Cmax ( x (t ) < Cmax ( x (t )) then
x g −b (t ) = x i −b (t ) ; Cmax ( x g −b (t )) = Cmax ( xi −b (t )) ; // update the global-best solution
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End If
i −b
For each edge (u , v) ∈ x1 (t ) do
Apply the global updating rule;
End For
For each edge (u , v ) do
τ de (t + 1) = τ de (t ) ;
End For
x g −b (t + 1) = x g −b (t ) ; C max ( x g − b ( t + 1)) = C max ( x g − b ( t )) ; t = t + 1 ;
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Until t reaches the maximum number of tours
Return x g −b (t ) ;
4.2 State transition rule
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While constructing its tour, an ant a currently located at job d chooses the next job e,
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to move to, using following rule.
{
β
arg max {τ du ( t )η du ( t )} if r ≤ r0
e= u∈ N d ( t )
a
(13)
E if r > r0
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Where r : U (0,1) ; r0 ∈ [0,1] is a user-specified parameter; N da (t ) = V \ x1a (t ) is the current set
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of unvisited jobs (feasible nodes that are connected to node d); τ du is the pheromone
concentration on the corresponding edge (d,u), and represents the a posteriori effectiveness
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of the move from job d to job u ( i.e. indicates how profitable it has been in the previous
tours to make a move from d to u); η du (t ) is the heuristic information, which is the job u’s
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ranking index of the SCH ȥ at the first stage, and expresses the a priori effectiveness of the
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move (i.e. attractiveness or desirability of the move); β is a positive constant used to amplify
the influence of the heuristic information; and E ∈ N da (t ) is a job selected randomly
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according to the probability defined by the following formula.

τ dE (t )η dE
β
(t )
a
pdE (t ) = (14)
∑ u∈N (t )τ du (t )ηduβ (t )
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a
d
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The parameter r0 determines the relative importance of exploitation versus exploration: if
r ≤ r0 , the ants select the next job using Formula 13 and exploit the knowledge obtained
about the search space by favoring the best moves that have the highest pheromone
concentrations and the best heuristic information; otherwise, ants use Formula 14 to explore
the search space by investigating previously unseen moves [82]. Once an ant a finishes its
tour, the jobs-permutation of n jobs at the first stage (which has been already stored in x1a (t ) )
is used to determine the jobs-permutations on the rest of stages using the FCFS manner.
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4.3 Local update rule
During its tour, an ant changes the pheromone concentrations on its path (visited
edges) by applying the local updating rule as follows.
τ de (t ) = (1 − ρ2 )τ de (t ) + ρ2τ 0 (15)
Where τ 0 = LB − 1 is the maximum initial pheromone concentration that is set as the inverse of
the lower bound of the makespan, and ρ 2 ∈ [0,1] is the local pheromone decay coefficient.
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This rule is used to decrease the attractiveness of edges dynamically in order to shuffle the
tour i.e. controls the influence of ants’ search history of the previous tours on their decisions
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in the current one. If the pheromone concentrations are decreased, ants will forget the
previous tours and explore new ones. If ants explore different paths, then there is a higher
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probability that one of them will find an improving solution than there in the case that they
focus on searching in small regions of the search space (the narrow neighbourhoods of the
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previous best path); consequently, this will provide a better exploration and delay the
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premature convergence [81].
4.4 The proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure

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An ACO algorithm can be imagined as the interplay of three procedures:

ConstructAntsSolutions, UpdatePheromones, and DaemonActions as an optional component.
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ConstructAntsSolutions manages a colony of ants that construct solutions of an optimization

problem by applying a probabilistic local decision policy (the state transition rule) which
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makes use of the information found in the surrounding environment such as the pheromone
trails and heuristic information. Once an ant has built a solution, it uses the
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UpdatePheromones procedure to update the pheromone concentrations on the edges of the

constructed path. UpdatePheromones is the process by which the pheromone trails are
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changed; the trails can either increase, ants excrete pheromone on the edges they use
(exploitation), or decrease due to pheromone evaporation (exploration). Finally,
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DaemonActions procedure is usually used to implement problem-specific or centralized

actions that cannot be performed by single ants such as a local search process. In many
applications to hard combinatorial optimization problems like the TSP, the GAP, or the VRP,
ACO algorithms perform best when integrated with local search routines because they move
the ants’ solutions to their local optimums just before the pheromone update [77].
Though experimentally it has been observed that (if available) the use of local search
routines improves the ACO’s overall performance, it does not have any effects on the
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convergence properties of ACO theoretically. This is because the validity of convergence
proofs (as presented in [78]) depends only on the way solutions are constructed and not on
the fact that the solutions are moved or not to their local optimums by a local search routine
[79]; so theoretically, it would be better if the local search routine can directly affect the way
solutions are constructed (in a positive manner). However, it can be seen that the traditional
DaemonActions procedure cannot interfere in the way solutions are constructed by ants
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because local search routines have been always integrated with ACOs in a daemon fashion
i.e. the modifications done by the local search routine on the visited edges of ants’ paths,
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which relocate them on the best found neighbourhood regions, are applied without informing
the decision holders, which are the ants themselves, and the pheromone concentrations and
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heuristic information, associated with the modified edges, that affect the ants’ decisions when
they come to these edges in the upcoming tour are not modified accordingly. Consequently,
the ants may follow the path found by the local search routine when applied on the best ant’s
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solution (because of the global updating rule), but they will probably not follow the paths
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found by it when applied on their solutions; this in turn, may not enable the ants to fully
exploit the knowledge brought by the local search, and reduces the exploitation
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(intensification) capabilities of ACO.

Alternatively, in the proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure, ants have a better
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chance for following the locally optimized paths (previously found by the local search
routine) because they know what kind of modifications have been performed on the original
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paths, and thus can make the corresponding modifications in pheromone concentrations and
heuristic information (associated with the modified edges) that enable them to follow these
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paths; for this reason, the proposed local search routine is called the Non-DaemonActions
procedure. The difference between the traditional DaemonActions procedure and the
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proposed one is explained graphically in Fig. 3. As it can be seen from Fig. 3, the basic
assumption is as follows. If an ant cannot find a shorter path from nest to food source in the
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near neighbourhood unless an external local search routine is applied on its solution, this
indicates that its knowledge about the surrounding environment i.e. pheromone trails and
heuristic information are not completely accurate and should be updated according to the
knowledge provided by the local search routine, in such a way that enables it to find this path
by itself at the next tour. If an ant can find the shorter path by itself, this will probably entitle
it for finding much shorter paths in the future tours.
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Ying and Lin [3] proposed an effective ACO with a DaemonActions procedure that
integrates a local search routine for HFSPMT, in which, the local search routine starts from
an initial jobs list and tries to improve the current list by swapping job positions in the list
with each of the six nearest jobs. If the change produces a better solution, then it is kept;
otherwise, it is ignored and swapped repeatedly until all the remaining pairs of jobs have
been tested. For this particular DaemonActions procedure, the modifications proposed to
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convert it into a Non-DaemonActions are swapping the jobs along with their pheromone
concentrations and heuristic information. The pseudocode of the proposed Non-
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DaemonActions procedure is given in Algorithm 2.
Algorithm 2 Pseudocode of the Non-DaemonActions procedure
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i −b
Let x1 = [ x11 ,...x1n ] be the array of jobs-permutation at the first stage for the iteration-best solution;
τ = [τ1 ,...τ n ] the array of their corresponding pheromone concentrations;
η = [η1 ,...ηn ] the array of their corresponding heuristic ranking values;
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s ∈ {2,...n − 1} a randomly selected position and x1 s = x1i − b [ s ] the job located at s;
For Itr = 1 to 6 do
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Let e = s + Itr be the neighbouring position the from right side;
If e ≤ n then
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i −b
Let x1e = x1 [e] be the neighbouring job from the right side;
x1i −b [ s ] = x1e ; x1i −b [e] = x1s ; // swapping the positions of the two jobs
i −b
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Let x1,se be the resulting jobs-permutation after swapping the positions of x1s and x1e ;
Construct the jobs-permutations for the other stages in a FCFS manner for the forward and
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i −b i −b
backward schedules; Compute their objective function values Cmax ( xse, f (t )) and Cmax ( xse,b (t )) ;
Cmax ( xsei −b (t )) = min (Cmax ( xsei −,bf (t )), Cmax ( xsei −,bb (t ))) ;
i −b i −b
If Cmax ( xse ) < Cmax ( x
EP
) then
temp = τ [ x1s ] ; τ [ x1s ] = τ [ x1e ] ; τ [ x1e ] = temp ; // swapping their corresponding pheromone values
temp = η[ x1s ] ; η[ x1s ] = η[ x1e ] ;η[ x1e ] = temp ; // swapping their corresponding heuristic values
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break;
i −b i −b
Else x1 [ s ] = x1s ; x1 [e] = x1e // undo the swapping
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End If
End If
End For
For Itr = 1 to 6 do
Let e = s − Itr be the neighbouring position from the left side;
If e ≥ 1 then
i −b
Let x1e = x1 [e] be the neighbouring job from the left side;
x1i −b [ s ] = x1e ; x1i −b [e] = x1s ; // swapping the positions of the two jobs
i −b
Let x1,es be the resulting jobs-permutation after swapping the positions of x1e and x1s ;
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Construct the jobs-permutations for the other stages in a FCFS manner for the forward and
i −b i −b
backward schedules; Compute their objective function values Cmax ( xes , f (t )) and Cmax ( xes,b (t )) ;
Cmax ( xesi −b (t )) = min (Cmax ( xesi −,bf (t )), Cmax ( xesi −,bb (t ))) ;
i −b i −b
If Cmax ( xes ) < Cmax ( x ) then
temp = τ [ x1s ] ; τ [ x1s ] = τ [ x1e ] ; τ [ x1e ] = temp // swapping their corresponding pheromone values
temp = η[ x1s ] ; η[ x1s ] = η[ x1e ] ;η[ x1e ] = temp // swapping their corresponding heuristic values
break;
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i −b i −b
Else x1 [ s ] = x1s ; x1 [e] = x1e // undo the swapping
End If
End If
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End For
While Ying and Lin [3] proposed applying the local search routine only on the jobs-
permutation at the first stage, Lin et al. [76] recommended applying it on the jobs-
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permutation at the last stage as well, and Chou [65] suggested applying a cocktail of
decoding methods for assigning the jobs to processors in the rest of stages (i.e. i = 2,..., k );
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therefor, an additional step of refinement, which is not reported in Algorithm 2, was
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occasionally performed by applying the local search routine proposed Ying and Lin [3] on a
randomly selected stage, that is other than the first stage, with a probability of 10%; however,
this additional step was found most effective for the smallest size instances (i.e. n = 5 ).
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4.5 Global update rule

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The global updating rule is applied after all ants have completed their tours, their
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forward and backward schedules have been constructed, and the Non-DaemonActions
procedure has been applied to improve the best schedule of current iteration. This rule makes
the ants in favor of exploitation by encouraging them to search in the neighbourhood of the
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iteration-best solution; this is done by increasing the pheromone concentrations of the edges
that belong to its first stage’s jobs-permutation and decreasing the rest, as follows.
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τ de (t ) = (1 − ρ1 )τ de (t ) + ρ1∆τ de (t ) (16)
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 1 i −b
if (d , e ) ∈ x1 (t )
∆τ de (t ) =  Cmax ( xi −b (t )) (17)
 0 otherwise
Where x1i −b (t ) is the jobs-permutation at the first stage of the iteration-best solution,
Cmax ( xi −b (t )) is its makespan value, and ρ1 ∈ [0,1] is the global pheromone decay coefficient
which controls the influence of the iteration-best solution; while large values of ρ1 cause
rapid evaporation and increase the influence of the iteration-best solution, so exploration is
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emphasized; on the other hand, small values of it cause slow evaporation and decrease the
influence of the iteration-best solution, so exploitation is emphasized [82].
5 Computational results
To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, 700 test instances were
considered from two well-known benchmark problem sets. The first set was produced by
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Oğuz et al. [59]. In this set, two classes of random instances were generated: Type-Ι and
Type-ΙΙ. For the Type-Ι test instances, the number of processors available at different stages
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was randomly chosen to be between one and five; for the Type-ΙΙ test instances, it was set at
five processors for all stages. Moreover, the test instances of Type-Ι and Type-ΙΙ were
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categorized into 30 sub-sets by using the following experimental design: the number of jobs n
was set as 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100; the number of stages k was given to be 2, 5, and 8; and the
number of processor requirements for the task of job j at stage i (sizeij) was chosen randomly
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from the set {1,..., mi }. For each combination of n and k, 10 instances with integer job
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processing times uniformly distributed over [1,100] were randomly generated; so, the test bed
is composed of 2×5×3×10=300 benchmark instances. In fact, the complete set contains
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another 300 instances produced over the range [1,1000], but it has been ignored since that
Oğuz et al. [59] did not report their results on them because they found that the performance
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does not depend on the interval over which job processing times are uniformly distributed.
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The second set was proposed by Sivrikaya-Şerifoğlu and Ulusoy [60]. This set also has two
classes of random instances, namely Type-A and Type-B. For comparison purposes, the
experimental design of this benchmark problem set was equivalent to the benchmark problem
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set proposed by Oğuz et al. [59], except that the number of stages (k) was given to be 2, 5, 8
and 10. So, the test bed was composed of 2×5×4×10=400 benchmark instances.
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The algorithm was implemented in C++, and the tests were run on a PC with 3.40
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GHz Intel(R) Core (TM) i7-3770 CPU and 8.00 GB. The parameters were set as follows: the
number of ants 20, the maximum number of iterations (tours) 1000, and the rest of
parameters were set as proposed by Ying and Lin [3]: ρ1 = 0.1 , ρ 2 = 0.1 , τ 0 = (LB) −1 , and
β = 3 ; and r0 = 0.3 for small size problems (i.e. n ≤ 20) and r0 = 0.7 for large size ones (i.e.
n > 20) . In order to study the effects of the algorithmic parameters on the solution quality, a
series of experiments were done an instance of the maximum available size (100x10) called
10010HB1, which belongs to Type-B (which is harder than Type-A) of the second benchmark
set. In all of the following experiments, only one parameter was changed while keeping the
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other parameters fixed. The effects of varying the size of the colony l are shown in Fig. 4; it
is clear that the algorithm finds better solutions in less number of iterations as l increases.
Fig.5 clarifies the effects of varying ρ1 ; it can be noticed that as ρ1 increases, the performance
decreases because of an imbalance between the exploitation and exploration of the search
space i.e. the ants are excessively encouraged to forget their previous search experience and
explore new regions in the neighbourhood of the iteration-best solution. The effects of
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varying ρ 2 are shown in Fig. 6; it can be observed that as ρ 2 grows, the solution quality
diminishes because the ants are hurriedly motivated to forget their search history and explore
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new areas in the search space randomly. It can be also observed that performance diminishes
slightly when ρ 2 grows from 0.1 to 0.3, and more apparently at the values of 0.5 and 0.7.
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Fig. 7 represents the effects of varying β ; it can been seen that as β enlarges, the premature
convergence occurs more rapidly at earlier iterations because the ants are extremely induced
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to neglect their previous search experience about the search space (represented by the
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pheromone concentrations) and explore new areas in favor of the amplified heuristic
information. It can be also seen that when β values are 5 and 7, the search starts from higher
quality solutions, but converges very soon nearby these solutions. On the hand, when β
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values are 1 and 3, the search starts from inferior solutions, but converges slowly to near-
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optimal solutions. The effects of varying r0 are explained in Fig. 8; it can be noted that
whereas the algorithm exhibits the best convergence at r0 = 0.7 , it exhibits worse
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convergence at the other values because of immoderate exploration ( r0 = 0.3 ), insufficient
exploitation ( r0 = 0.5 ), or excessive exploitation ( r0 = 0.9 ). Finally, Fig. 9 shows the effects
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of varying the neighbourhood size; it can be noticed that as it gets larger, the performance
enhances. It can be also noticed that even with small neighbourhood size such as 3, the
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proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure can make a significant improvement to the solution

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quality.
5.1 Evaluation of the proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure

In this experiment, ACSNDP was compared with other four versions of it that are
identical to it, but use alternative strategies during the Non-DaemonActions procedure: an
ACSNDP that completely omits the Non-DaemonActions procedure (ACSNDP-SN); an
ACSNDP that swaps only the positions of the jobs (ACSNDP-SJ); an ACSNDP that swaps
only the pheromone concentrations of the jobs and reconstruct the paths, using the state
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transition rule, accordingly (ACSNDP-SP); and an ACSNDP that that swaps only the
positions and pheromone concentrations of the jobs (ACSNDP-SJP).
The average relative deviation of the best solution (ARD-BS) and the average relative
deviation of the average solution (ARD-AvS) from lower bound (LB), for each subset, were
calculated by the following formulas, respectively:
 10
BSi − LBi 
ARD − BS =  ∑( ) × 100  /10 (18)
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 i =1
LBi 
 10
AvSi − LBi 
ARD − AvS =  ∑ ( ) ×100  /10 (19)
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 i =1
LBi 
Where BSi and AvSi are the best solution and average solution, respectively, obtained from 5
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independent runs on each instance i; LBi was calculated based on the lower bound developed
by Oğuz et al. [59] using the following formula, where the set of jobs is denoted by J and the
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set of stages is denoted by M:
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 
i −1
 1 
m


LB = max
i∈M
 min 
 j∈J  k =1
∑
pkj  +
 mi
∑ j∈J
pij × sizeij +
min
j∈J
 ∑ pkj  (20)
 k =i +1 
M
Table 2 and Table 3 summarize the computational results of ARD-BS, ARD-AvS, and
the average computational time (ACT) in seconds obtained for the first and second
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benchmark problem sets, respectively. From Table 2 and Table 3, it can be seen that ACSNDP
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is capable of obtaining the best results in terms of number of lowest ARD-BS and ARD-AvS
values obtained over the 70 subsets. For the ARD-BS case, the compared algorithms can be
ordered from best to worst as follows: ACSNDP 55 (78.57%), ACSNDP-SJP 27 (38.57%),
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ACSNDP-SJ 27 (38.57%), ACSNDP-SP 13 (18.57%), and ACSNDP-SN 3 (4.29%).

Similarity, for the ARD-AvS case, the order is found to be the same: ACSNDP 49 (70.00%),
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ACSNDP-SJP 26 (37.14%), ACSNDP-SJ 24 (34.29%), ACSNDP-SP 10 (14.29%), and

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ACSNDP-SN 1 (1.43%). Furthermore, to provide a more precise comparison of the results,

the overall averages over both of the benchmark problem sets were calculated. Table 4
summarizes the results; it shows the overall average of ARD-BS, ARD-AvS, and ACT values
for ACSNDP and the other algorithms (OA), and the relative improvement achieved by
ACSNDP in BS-ARD, AvS-ARD, and ACT values to the other algorithms
RI ARD − BS , RI ARD− AvS , and RI ACT which were calculated by the following formulas.
RI ARD−BS =100×(OAARD−BS − ACSNDPARD−BS ) / OAARD−BS (21)
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RI ARD−AvS =100×(OAARD−AvS − ACSNDPARD−AvS )/ OAARD−AvS (22)
RI ACT = (OAACT − ACSNDPACT ) / OAACT (23)

From Table 4, it is clear that ACSNDP yields relative improvements in solution quality to all
other algorithms. These relative improvements reach up to 20.88% in ARD-BS (which
confirms its effectiveness) and 19.93% in ARD-BS (which confirms its robustness) when
compared with ACSNDP-SN that uses the non-hybrid ACS approach, but with an increased
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computational cost 123% in ACT. Regarding ACSNDP-SJ that uses the traditional
DaemonActions procedure proposed by Ying and Lin [3], the improvements are 2.49 % in
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ARD-BS and 2.24% in ARD-AvS, almost in the same computational cost; these
improvements are not so big, but they still close a critical part of the gap to the optimum, and
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validate the advantages of the proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure over the traditional
one in improving the exploitation. It can be also noted that ACSNDP-SPJ is also better than
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ACSNDP-SJ, but the improvement occurred are tiny, which indicates that changing the
pheromone concentrations alone without changing the corresponding heuristic information is
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not enough to enable the ants to follow the paths found by the local search routine.
Concerning ACSNDP-SP, its performance is even worse than ACSNDP-SJ, it seems that ants
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cannot perform a local search process effectively by themselves and the reconstructed paths
were not better than the original ones; this may be due to the fact that the local search routine
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can interact with the search space directly, but ants can interact with the search space only
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indirectly via the probabilistic model. Furthermore, a comparison of convergence curves for
the five versions on the instance 10010HB1 is shown in Fig.10, it can be seen that the order
of the compared algorithms from best to worst in terms of convergence properties is the same
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one as obtained in the cases of ARD-BS and ARD-AvS, which supports the results obtained
in ARD-BS and ARD-AvS and confirms the superiority of ACSNDP in terms of convergence
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speed and accuracy.

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5.2 Comparing ACSNDP with other algorithms

In this experiment, ACSNDP was compared with other 12 algorithms well-known in
the literature: ACSYL [3], IGYing [52], SAWCW [57], TSOZDJL [59], GASU [60], GAOE [61],
PSOTL [64], GAJOS & MAJOS [72], PSOCFA [73], HIAYing [74], and HABCLYH [76].
Table 5 shows the computational results of the average of the best solution AV-BS
obtained by the compared algorithms on each subset for the first benchmark problem set. By
considering the number of lowest AV-BS obtained over the 30 subsets as a performance
criterion, the algorithms can be ordered from best to worst as follows: HABCLYH 15
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(50.00%), MAJOS 9 (30.00%), SAWCW 6 (20.00%), GAOE 6 (20.00%), ACSNDP 4 (13.33%),
HIAYing 3 (10.00%), ACSYL 2 (6.67%), and GAJOS 1 (3.33%); therefore, ACSNDP is better
than HIAYing, ACSYL, and GAJOS. Table 6 shows the computational results for the second
benchmark problem set. Similarly, the order is as follows: HABCLYH 20 (50.00%), MAJOS 14
(35.00%), SAWCW 11 (27.50%), ACSNDP 6 (15.00%), HIAYing 5 (12.50%), ACSYL 3 (7.50%),
GASU 2 (5.00%), and GAJOS 2 (5.00%). Consequently, the performance of ACSNDP is better
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than ACSYL, HIAYing, GASU, and GAJOS. To make a more comprehensive comparison, the
overall overage of AV-BS was calculated over the available instances for each algorithm.
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Table 7 shows the number of instances solved (NIS), overall average of AV-BS values for
ACSNDP and the other algorithms (OA), and the improvement achieved by ACSNDP to the
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other algorithms. From Table 7 we can notice that ACSNDP yields relative improvements to
all other algorithms except HABCLYH, SAWCW, and HIAYing.
This study also measured the effectiveness of the available algorithms that use the
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same lower bound approach by considering the number of lowest ARD-BS values obtained
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over the subsets. The computational results for the first benchmark problem set are provided
in Table 8, and the algorithms can be ordered as follows: IGYing 16 (53.33%), ACSNDP 6
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(20.00%), AISYing 5 (16.67%), PSOCFA 4 (13.33%), ACSYL 0 (0.00%), and TSOZHJL 0

(0.00%). It is clear that ACSNDP comes at the second rank after IGYing. To further verify the
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effectiveness of ACSNDP on the first benchmark problem set, ANOVA test was carried on
the ARD-BS values. Fig. 11 reports the means and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). From Fig.
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11, it can be noted that ACSNDP is also the second best algorithm in terms of statistical
significance. In addition, the resulting p-value is 0.000019 which means that the compared
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algorithms are statistically significantly different with each other.

Table 9 presents the computational results for the second benchmark problem set, and
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the order is as follows: IGYing 20 (50.00%), ACSNDP 10 (25.00%), HIAYing 6 (15.00%),

PSOTL 4 (10.00%), ACSYL 0 (0.00%), and GASU 0 (0.00%); so, It is obvious that ACSNDP
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has also got the second rank after IGYing. The results of ANOVA test on the second
benchmark problem set are shown in Fig. 12, where it can be observed that ACSNDP is again
at the second rank after IGYing, but there are no significant differences between the compared
algorithms since the resulting p-value is 0.951754. The relative improvements made by
ACSNDP in ARD-BS were also calculated, and the computational results are presented in
Table 10. As revealed from Table 10, ACSNDP yields improvements to all other algorithms
except IGYing and PSOCFA.
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6 Conclusion and further works
ACO is a well-known metaheuristic with a variety of successful applications.

HFSPMT is a relatively new area of HFSP research with an increased interest in the
literature. In this work, in order to improve the exploitation (intensification) abilities of ACO
(ACS in particular) and to solve HFSPMT with the objective of makespan minimization more
effectively, an ant colony system with a novel Non-DaemonActions procedure (ACSNDP)
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was proposed. Unlike the traditional DaemonActions procedure, the proposed Non-
DaemonActions procedure informs the ants about the changes occurred in their paths that
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take them to their local optimums, and give them the opportunity to act accordingly i.e. do
the corresponding changes in the environment (changing the pheromone concentrations and
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heuristic information) that enable them to reach these local optimums by themselves in the
upcoming tour.
A brief study of the effects of the algorithmic parameters (such as β , ρ1 , ρ 2 , r0 , size of
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the colony, and size of neighbourhood) on the solution quality was performed and the results
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were analysed. The proposed algorithm was compared with other four versions of it that use
different strategies during the Non-DaemonActions procedure phase: ACSNDP-SN that
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completely omits the Non-DaemonActions procedure (non-hybrid ACS approach);

ACSNDP-SJ that swaps only the positions of the jobs (a hybrid ACS approach with the
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traditional DaemonActions procedure proposed by Ying and Lin [3]); ACSNDP-SP that
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swaps only the pheromones concentrations of the jobs and reconstruct the paths using the
state transition rule; and ACSNDP-SJP that that swaps only the positions and pheromone
concentrations of the jobs. The tests we done on the well-known benchmarks problem sets of
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Oğuz et al. [59] and Sivrikaya-Şerifoğlu and Ulusoy [60]. The comparisons were based on
four performance criteria: the number of lowest ARD-BS (the average relative deviation of
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the best solution) values, the number of lowest ARD-AvS (the average relative deviation of
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the average solution) values, the overall average of ARD-BS, the overall average of ARD-BS
values over the two benchmark problem sets, and convergence curves.
The computational results verified the superiority of the Non-DaemonActions
procedure over all of the considered alternatives in terms of effectiveness and robustness. The
highest relative improvements with respect to solution quality (ARD-BS and ARD-AvS
values) were in the case of ACSNDP-SN, but with a considerable increase in the
computational cost. In the comparison made with ACSNDP-SJ, the results of ACSNDP of
were better, at almost the same computational cost. Furthermore, it was observed that
22
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ACSNDP-SPJ is also better than ACSNDP-SJ, but the improvements occurred were tiny.
Concerning ACSNDP-SP, its performance was even worse than ACSNDP-SJ.
ACSNDP was also compared with other 12 works well-known in the literature:
ACSYL [3], IGYing [52], SAWCW [57], TSOZDJL [59], GASU [60], GAOE [61], PSOTL [64], GAJOS
& MAJOS [72], PSOCFA [73], HIAYing [74], and HABCLYH [76]. The comparisons were based
on five performance criteria: the number of lowest AV-BS (the average of the best solution)
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obtained by the compared algorithms over the subsets of the first benchmark set and subsets
of the second benchmark, the overall overage of AV-BS over all of the solved instances
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(either one, the other or both of benchmark sets), the number of lowest ARD-BS values
obtained over the subsets of the first benchmark set and subsets of the second benchmark, the
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overall overage of ARD-BS over all of the solved instances, and ANOVA test. The
computational results showed that ACSNDP can give relative improvements in ARD-BS and
ARD-AvS values to all of the compared algorithms, except HABCLYH [76], SAWCW [57], and
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HIAYing [74] in the case of the AV-BS; and IGYing [52] and PSOCFA [73] in the case of the
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ARD-BS; Therefore, ACSNDP can be considered as an effective approach for solving
HFSPMT.
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The basic idea behind the proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure is a promising

area of research, and it is worthy of further investigation on other optimization problems
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since it yields improvements in the premature convergence when applied on HFSPMT, which
is one of the most intractable combinatorial optimization problems. Furthermore, the
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proposed approach is effective, simple to understand, and easy to implement; and these
characteristics are sometimes welcome in real applications, especially industrial applications.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Kuo-Ching Ying and Shih-Wei Lin for their
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benchmark problem sets and solution files.

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Table 1
An example of a 5× 2 HFSPMT.
Stage 1 Stage 2
m1 = 3 m2 = 2
Job pij sizeij Job pij sizeij
1 10 2 1 15 1
2 13 3 2 12 2
3 8 2 3 15 1
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4 10 3 4 20 2
5 15 1 5 10 2
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Table 2
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Results of ACSNDPs with different Non-DaemonActions procedures on the first benchmark

problem set.
n × k ACSNDP-SN ACSNDP-SJ ACSNDP-SP ACSNDP-SJP ACSNDP
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ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT
Type-1
5x2 15,01 15,01 6,54 14,44 14,44 7,24 14,44 14,68 7,28 14,44 14,60 7,34 14,44 14,44 7,26
5x5 21,95 21,95 9,76 20,73 21,00 19,42 20,73 21,00 19,90 20,73 21,00 19,68 20,73 21,00 19,06
5x8 22,05 22,05 15,34 18,16 19,59 29,92 18,16 19,59 29,68 18,16 19,59 29,64 18,16 19,59 29,20
10 x 2 1,57 1,58 8,54 1,57 1,57 9,66 1,57 1,57 9,00 1,57 1,57 9,14 1,57 1,57 9,42
10 x 5 10,23 10,83 20,76 9,54 9,92 23,86 9,76 10,32 21,26 9,63 10,12 24,84 9,30 9,34 24,80
C
10 x 8 17,23 17,82 33,58 16,58 16,96 80,96 17,29 17,58 82,22 16,44 16,94 80,04 15,91 15,93 81,02
20 x 2 2,06 2,35 11,80 1,71 1,80 27,06 1,83 1,95 27,24 1,74 1,80 27,46 1,67 1,74 27,70
20 x 5 5,47 6,44 30,34 3,36 3,79 60,50 4,04 4,42 56,46 3,52 3,88 61,60 2,63 3,09 61,58
20 x 8 12,12 13,18 67,50 6,58 7,86 255,24 6,87 8,18 333,90 6,86 7,98 349,92 6,30 7,38 273,64
AC
50 x 2 3,84 4,18 57,28 1,93 2,44 110,88 2,11 2,59 114,06 2,08 2,47 111,20 1,93 2,34 112,92
50 x 5 3,13 3,54 157,04 1,44 1,66 265,88 1,55 1,75 271,13 1,49 1,69 260,30 1,31 1,58 259,14
50 x 8 6,50 7,43 205,02 1,87 2,72 721,98 2,01 2,94 715,92 1,88 2,74 696,98 1,71 2,55 694,04
100 x 2 1,51 1,68 122,52 0,45 0,53 375,54 0,47 0,57 382,64 0,45 0,56 380,48 0,45 0,54 377,32
100 x 5 2,55 2,94 299,78 0,65 0,95 993,74 0,68 0,99 1058,96 0,65 0,94 996,44 0,65 0,95 996,78
100 x 8 3,60 4,15 799,76 1,02 1,34 2769,54 1,03 1,35 2729,98 0,98 1,31 2748,60 0,95 1,25 2658,14
Type-2
5x2 34,54 34,54 5,64 33,71 33,71 10,98 33,71 33,71 10,78 33,71 33,71 11,12 33,71 33,71 10,82
5x5 43,81 43,81 9,60 41,92 42,59 30,10 41,92 42,62 28,94 41,92 42,59 29,72 41,92 42,59 29,06
5x8 29,63 29,63 15,86 27,78 28,15 44,02 27,78 28,15 47,88 27,78 28,15 44,80 27,78 28,15 44,54
10 x 2 12,89 13,09 10,46 13,58 13,58 12,42 14,15 14,22 11,50 13,46 13,46 12,14 12,26 12,26 11,94
10 x 5 26,84 27,50 26,68 27,92 27,99 72,68 28,59 29,04 73,40 28,15 28,21 72,32 25,87 26,01 71,94
10 x 8 26,70 27,78 39,06 24,25 24,83 94,36 26,25 26,62 93,16 25,02 25,16 91,10 23,69 23,71 75,54
20 x 2 11,19 11,58 15,42 10,61 10,78 31,70 10,89 11,20 31,34 10,81 10,97 33,36 10,46 10,54 33,88
20 x 5 19,48 20,94 32,04 13,94 15,90 150,04 15,90 17,47 166,26 15,06 16,34 161,34 14,25 15,81 158,50
20 x 8 31,31 32,77 74,04 23,94 25,77 233,46 24,47 26,59 246,16 23,84 25,70 231,38 23,58 25,72 243,84
50 x 2 9,32 9,80 70,40 7,40 7,95 111,82 7,53 8,16 111,91 7,35 7,88 109,64 7,11 7,70 110,44
50 x 5 17,41 18,59 171,38 10,91 12,50 264,34 11,40 12,98 268,30 10,96 12,56 272,36 10,91 12,51 263,66
50 x 8 29,17 30,42 256,92 18,99 21,44 453,98 19,26 21,82 458,12 18,95 21,28 451,48 18,96 21,34 450,62
100 x 2 6,94 7,48 140,80 3,25 3,89 394,92 3,29 3,97 406,62 3,33 3,93 399,60 3,21 3,87 398,48
100 x 5 18,27 19,00 327,08 11,16 12,16 987,96 11,56 12,43 988,92 11,43 12,32 923,48 11,33 12,21 921,00
100 x 8 23,53 24,59 845,74 15,14 16,34 3219,24 15,28 16,48 3213,36 15,04 16,27 3177,98 14,80 16,09 3230,44
1
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Table 3
Results of ACSNDPs with different Non-DaemonActions procedures on the second
benchmark problem set.
n × k ACSNDP-SN ACSNDP-SJ ACSNDP-SP ACSNDP-SJP ACSNDP
ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT ARD-BS ARD-AvS ACT
Type-A
5x2 9,26 9,26 3,67 9,26 9,26 3,76 9,26 9,26 3,72 9,26 9,26 3,78 9,26 9,26 3,68
5x5 25,44 25,44 6,33 23,63 23,63 8,06 23,63 23,63 8,11 23,59 23,59 8,12 23,59 23,94 8,10
5x8 26,30 26,30 9,55 24,55 25,33 10,50 24,55 25,33 10,50 24,55 25,33 11,00 24,55 25,33 10,00
5 x 10 26,13 26,13 12,21 23,80 24,45 13,00 23,80 24,45 11,00 23,80 24,45 12,50 23,80 24,45 12,50
10 x 2 2,88 2,89 6,88 2,90 2,96 8,40 2,90 3,00 8,47 2,88 2,88 8,38 2,88 2,88 12,14
10 x 5 11,37 12,22 17,90 10,74 11,10 20,24 11,74 12,10 19,80 10,90 11,16 20,51 9,90 10,41 20,28
10 x 8 19,73 21,54 27,96 19,96 20,47 33,58 20,38 21,50 33,00 19,66 20,17 33,56 18,53 18,73 32,06
10 x 10 15,18 15,59 33,34 13,34 13,74 40,86 14,49 15,31 40,32 13,24 14,23 40,76 13,33 13,75 40,18
PT
20 x 2 6,31 6,63 16,30 5,74 6,10 34,26 6,17 6,95 33,76 5,39 5,91 33,04 5,36 5,43 33,74
20 x 5 9,51 10,60 32,34 5,79 6,14 75,32 7,59 8,48 75,34 5,81 6,62 74,20 5,81 6,38 76,80
20 x 8 10,36 11,42 76,96 4,98 5,71 128,50 7,37 8,29 130,80 5,63 6,27 130,34 5,15 6,10 129,66
20 x 10 14,24 15,89 85,06 8,03 9,21 154,20 10,37 11,29 156,96 9,13 9,97 156,41 8,13 10,26 155,59
50 x 2 4,08 4,53 47,96 2,50 3,09 94,34 2,40 3,31 95,74 2,16 2,56 93,48 2,16 2,61 95,70
50 x 5 4,15 4,66 121,62 1,71 1,92 220,98 1,94 2,24 218,00 1,45 1,77 220,36 1,45 1,97 222,44
50 x 8 8,70 9,40 221,68 3,62 3,89 370,76 3,78 5,17 376,84 3,36 3,96 379,12 3,00 3,83 376,52
50 x 10 9,78 10,62 340,86 2,95 3,44 473,92 4,56 4,78 474,32 3,17 3,90 458,64 2,91 3,73 485,26
1,60 1,60
RI
100 x 2 2,33 2,56 170,88 2,15 2,58 325,88 2,56 2,78 334,00 1,17 324,56 1,53 327,86
100 x 5 4,83 5,41 383,06 3,42 3,60 784,82 3,31 3,61 781,56 2,31 2,59 760,06 2,21 2,60 758,10
100 x 8 4,66 5,31 594,40 2,42 2,60 1256,36 2,31 2,61 1317,66 1,31 1,59 1311,44 1,21 1,47 1299,02
100 x 10 5,21 5,72 977,32 0,99 1,75 1568,38 1,44 1,79 1638,54 1,12 1,68 1633,86 1,01 1,64 1578,60
Type-B
5x2 24,62 24,62 3,00 24,35 24,35 3,20 24,35 24,35 3,20 24,35 24,35 3,16 24,35 24,35 3,26
5x5 40,26 40,26 5,76 36,96 37,32 7,00 37,96 38,32 7,20 36,96 37,32 7,92 36,96 37,32 7,38
SC
5x8 32,76 32,76 10,43 28,07 28,10 12,00 28,20 28,99 11,00 28,07 28,10 12,67 28,07 28,10 11,00
5 x 10 36,86 36,86 13,33 32,41 32,99 17,00 32,41 32,99 17,00 32,41 32,99 15,50 32,41 32,99 14,50
10 x 2 12,73 13,25 10,78 12,27 12,38 39,26 12,75 12,98 10,30 12,25 12,78 10,52 12,25 12,28 10,88
10 x 5 21,29 22,33 21,66 20,15 21,61 25,28 23,47 23,58 24,64 20,09 20,44 24,82 18,92 19,25 25,34
10 x 8 36,45 37,25 35,36 32,98 34,04 42,62 35,68 35,79 40,60 33,90 35,57 40,26 33,37 33,69 41,12
10 x 10 32,75 34,29 47,72 30,05 30,88 49,92 31,05 32,24 48,96 30,21 30,94 49,38 29,67 29,95 50,08
20 x 2 7,30 8,30 19,20 6,32 7,24 22,54 7,49 8,59 22,12 6,30 7,18 22,04 5,77 6,14 22,10
20 x 5 17,77 20,31 52,84 11,18 13,70 49,98 12,75 14,46 51,06 12,38 13,05 50,20 11,59 13,57 50,50
20 x 8 31,42 32,88 83,68 23,60 24,24 112,20 27,55 29,99 113,18 23,81 25,48 111,74 23,75 25,81 111,06
U
20 x 10 37,20 39,26 108,78 29,31 30,52 181,30 31,37 34,74 181,42 28,98 31,62 183,00 29,41 32,73 182,32
50 x 2 8,74 9,46 56,16 6,48 7,33 84,12 6,36 7,63 80,72 5,27 5,89 83,08 5,45 5,95 82,66
50 x 5 19,25 20,47 145,00 13,14 14,18 209,48 15,07 16,04 214,72 12,05 13,16 210,20 11,59 13,33 210,92
50 x 8 28,25 29,82 263,52 22,16 23,01 354,42 22,67 23,53 368,18 20,18 21,24 358,24 19,37 21,58 354,20
50 x 10 33,81 35,32 414,78 24,28 25,31 610,12 25,29 26,08 611,20 23,66 24,77 615,20 23,61 24,76 615,04
AN
100 x 2 8,12 8,57 204,32 6,57 7,28 341,02 8,13 9,15 351,26 5,29 6,09 340,70 5,55 6,00 343,28
100 x 5 16,33 16,90 408,60 10,20 11,78 792,70 11,67 12,43 823,34 9,63 11,95 791,36 9,26 10,41 799,62
100 x 8 22,91 23,58 713,78 14,92 16,71 1246,84 17,36 17,43 1255,00 14,81 16,94 1257,12 14,04 15,43 1257,72
M
D
TE
Table 4
Relative improvements by ACSNDP to ACSNDPs with alternatives Non-DaemonActions
procedures on both of the benchmark problem sets.
EP
Algorithm ARD-BS RI ARD − BS ARD-AvS RI ARD− AvS ACT RI ACT

OA (%) ACSNDP (%) ACSNDP (%) OA (%) ACSNDP (%) ACSNDP (%) OA (s) ACSNDP (s) ACSNDP (%)
ACSNDP-SN 16,82 13,31 20,88 17,48 14,00 19,93 151,10 336,36 -123
ACSNDP-SP 14,32 13,31 7,07 15,04 14,00 6,92 343,98 336,36 2
C
ACSNDP-SJ 13,65 13,31 2,49 14,32 14,00 2,24 338,51 336,36 1

ACSNDP-SJP 13,60 13,31 2,12 14,29 14,00 2,06 339,03 336,36 1
AC
2
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Table 5
Computational results of AV-BS obtained by the compared works for the first benchmark
problem set.
n × k GAOE GAJOS ACSYL MAJOS SAWCW HIAYing HABCLYH ACSNDP
Type-1
5x2 267,6 267,6 267,0 267,0 267,3 267,0 267,0 267,0
5x5 472,1 472,1 469,8 466,6 469,2 469,2 468,7 468,1
5x8 641,6 641,6 628,9 616,7 634,7 628,7 636,8 621,4
PT
10 x 2 451,1 451,1 451,1 451,1 451,1 451,1 451,1 451,1
10 x 5 639,1 648,4 645,1 637,8 643,0 641,4 641,3 644,1
10 x 8 836,9 850,5 852,4 840,3 847,8 843,0 851,3 848,7
20 x 2 876,7 876,5 877,1 877,7 875,3 875,9 875,9 875,9
RI
20 x 5 1072,1 1077,7 1074,7 1070,3 1064,9 1066,5 1066,6 1070,3
20 x 8 1319,3 1319,9 1315,6 1315,2 1303,2 1305,3 1302,4 1309,8
50 x 2 2049,4 2048,5 2052,1 2046,1 2038,5 2042,3 2038,6 2045,0
SC
50 x 5 2604,0 2574,8 2577,2 2571,7 2566,6 2564,6 2564,2 2573,0
50 x 8 2669,6 2634,3 2644,8 2623,1 2609,3 2609,7 2599,1 2623,8
100 x 2 4355,0 4351,5 4363,8 4348,6 4349,2 4349,0 4346,8 4348,2
100 x 5 4755,0 4755,9 4697,1 4746,9 4670,7 4696,7 4664,0 4682,6
U
100 x 8 5327,7 5260,2 5231,3 5267,2 5206,4 5229,1 5191,4 5213,3
Type-2
AN
5x2 256,4 256,4 254,1 253,5 253,5 253,5 253,5 253,5
5x5 423,8 423,8 421,4 418,4 421,1 419,1 422,6 418,4
5x8 614,2 614,2 605,8 599,9 607,4 603,0 607,9 602,1
10 x 2 426,3 423,7 422,1 422,8 422,2 422,0 422,9
M
409,5
10 x 5 616,3 606,8 600,3 594,9 598,8 595,1 599,9 599,5
10 x 8 813,1 840,4 842,2 824,0 829,9 828,3 827,1 832,7
20 x 2 757,4 809,5 808,3 807,6 806,0 806,3 806,1 806,7
D
20 x 5 948,5 950,9 944,3 945,3 926,9 928,2 924,5 937,7

20 x 8 1148,0 1144,7 1134,0 1133,4 1095,6 1100,3 1099,4 1119,8
50 x 2 1731,8 1736,8 1722,2 1715,6 1719,9 1716,0 1720,8
TE
1671,1
50 x 5 2074,6 1971,7 1978,1 1960,7 1912,5 1884,9 1850,5 1940,6
50 x 8 2321,8 2292,2 2268,5 2315,7 2194,4 2175,5 2128,0 2210,6
100 x 2 3205,3 3242,5 3268,3 3215,0 3191,6 3215,0 3166,6 3194,5
100 x 5 4145,3 3822,3 3635,5 3802,0 3530,0 3616,1 3415,7 3599,8
EP
100 x 8 4216,6 4412,1 4078,6 4330,7 3992,8 4067,6 3855,7 4025,7

C
AC
3
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Table 6
Computational results of AV-BS obtained by the compared works for the second benchmark
problem set.
n × k GASU GAJOS ACSYL MAJOS SAWCW HIAYing HABCLYH ACSNDP
Type-A
5x2 275,3 275,3 275,3 275,3 275,3 275,3 275,3 275,3
5x5 452,9 452,9 449,8 466,0 449,9 447,5 450,8 446,0
5x8 632,4 631,0 629,5 621,4 629,7 629,1 631,1 624,2
PT
5 x 10 809,9 810,0 803,7 794,3 807,9 803,2 812,5 800,3
10 x 2 506,9 506,9 506,9 506,9 506,9 506,9 506,9 506,9
10 x 5 668,2 669,2 667,6 661,6 665,8 664,5 666,0 665,5
10 x 8 854,2 860,1 850,7 840,5 850,5 845,5 849,0 850,9
RI
10 x 10 999,9 1010,8 998,6 988,1 994,0 991,4 995,1 996,8
20 x 2 820,2 821,5 821,6 820,6 819,7 819,7 819,7 819,7
20 x 5 1109,6 1110,4 1109,9 1109,2 1106,6 1107,7 1105,9 1108,0
SC
20 x 8 1337,3 1345,0 1337,1 1336,8 1319,6 1321,9 1321,9 1326,9
20 x 10 1459,3 1455,9 1451,5 1462,7 1438,1 1440,8 1441,7 1450,3
50 x 2 2024,3 2007,1 2009,7 2004,2 1999,8 2004,0 2000,0 2005,4
50 x 5 2486,0 2472,6 2481,5 2468,3 2463,2 2456,8 2452,2 2463,1
U
50 x 8 2777,5 2741,2 2751,4 2742,6 2717,8 2709,1 2696,1 2718,3
50 x 10 2922,0 2899,4 2893,6 2893,3 2858,9 2855,8 2846,7 2874,2
AN
100 x 2 4183,4 4127,4 4138,8 4135,4 4121,6 4126,8 4119,6 4123,9
100 x 5 4665,2 4636,7 4590,2 4622,2 4552,0 4574,6 4528,8 4567,9
100 x 8 5142,3 5155,7 5098,4 5157,7 5063,3 5092,0 5041,5 5067,3
100 x 10 5358,8 5329,1 5266,6 5323,7 5238,8 5265,8 5229,8 5251,6
M
Type-B
5x2 252,2 252,2 251,7 251,7 251,7 251,7 251,7 251,7
5x5 438,6 438,6 432,9 429,2 432,9 431,7 432,8 429,2
D
5x8 614,1 613,4 600,7 592,7 603,3 597,6 597,3 594,5

5 x 10 748,5 748,5 734,8 724,8 735,3 736,2 735,4 730,0
10 x 2 390,6 392,9 391,8 388,6 389,9 389,2 389,2 389,4
TE
10 x 5 627,4 635,5 624,1 614,5 623,1 616,6 623,1 624,2

10 x 8 829,1 841,0 827,3 819,4 823,2 814,7 820,2 825,8
10x 10 899,9 905,7 895,7 874,3 895,0 886,9 894,6 892,3
20 x 2 691,3 690,6 689,5 688,3 686,9 687,5 687,0 688,7
EP
20 x 5 924,0 931,6 925,8 917,1 902,9 903,8 904,4 915,5

20 x 8 1181,4 1195,4 1180,3 1179,6 1154,1 1158,8 1157,8 1167,5
20 x 10 1303,9 1336,7 1307,3 1324,7 1267,0 1273,9 1274,6 1291,9
50 x 2 1737,0 1704,1 1713,8 1703,2 1691,3 1696,4 1691,1 1707,4
C
50 x 5 1971,5 1931,1 1952,0 1935,1 1889,7 1860,5 1825,0 1899,8

50 x 8 2275,8 2290,2 2215,8 2261,5 2175,9 2136,6 2081,0 2206,4
AC
50 x 10 2541,0 2552,4 2519,1 2544,7 2417,9 2404,8 2345,3 2479,2

100 x 2 3395,4 3305,8 3322,8 3303,0 3274,8 3292,9 3262,2 3279,5
100 x 5 3910,9 3954,7 3752,8 3849,1 3654,1 3726,7 3562,5 3678,3
100 x 8 4290,3 4382,0 4117,4 4320,6 4006,5 4089,9 3881,3 4047,3
100 x 10 4490,4 4622,1 4250,0 4505,9 4170,4 4244,3 3993,5 4205,8
4
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Table 7
Relative improvements by ACSNDP in AV-BS to the other works for the available instances.
Algorithm NIS AV-BS RI AV − BS

OA ACSNDP ACSNDP (%)
GASU 400 1824,97 1781,17 2,40
GAOE 300 1731,97 1690,92 2,37
GAJOS 700 1775,97 1736,05 2,25
MAJOS 700 1763,93 1736,05 1,58
PT
ACSYL 700 1750,44 1736,05 0,82
HIAYing 700 1733,81 1736,05 -0,13
RI
SAWCW 700 1728,17 1736,05 -0,46
HABCLYH 700 1711,85 1736,05 -1,41
U SC
AN
M
D
Table 8
TE
Computational results of ARD-BS obtained by the compared works for the first benchmark
problem set.
n × k Type-1 Type-2
EP
TSOZHJL ACSYL PSOCFA IGYing HIAYing ACSNDP TSOZHJL ACSYL PSOCFA IGYing HIAYing ACSNDP
5x2 11,42 14,64 - 10,88 14,79 14,44 20,22 34,25 - 18,35 34,91 33,71
5x5 38,98 21,29 - 18,62 21,68 20,73 52,45 43,27 - 38,49 42,51 41,92
5x8 38,49 19,58 - 17,53 21,74 18,16 94,56 28,54 - 26,87 29,34 27,78
C
10 x 2 3,00 1,60 1,70 1,49 1,60 1,57 10,82 12,62 10,11 8,85 12,29 12,26
10 x 5 29,42 9,51 9,78 8,73 9,25 9,30 45,14 26,09 11,32 23,49 25,42 25,87
10 x 8 46,53 16,50 16,14 13,91 15,39 15,91 77,21 25,14 25,83 22,17 23,46 23,69
AC
20 x 2 2,88 1,92 1,12 1,87 1,81 1,67 7,25 10,73 9,59 6,93 10,58 10,46
20 x 5 24,40 3,07 3,19 2,97 2,59 2,63 35,13 15,11 10,77 12,64 13,54 14,25
20 x 8 42,47 6,77 6,69 5,83 6,39 6,30 62,99 25,18 24,34 22,79 22,51 23,58
50 x 2 2,23 2,37 2,40 2,21 1,87 1,93 5,80 8,17 7,02 5,66 7,41 7,11
50 x 5 10,51 1,51 2,06 1,49 1,17 1,31 28,64 13,11 13,24 11,29 9,51 10,91
50 x 8 21,04 2,59 3,00 2,47 2,09 1,71 54,25 22,23 23,07 20,71 19,11 18,96
100 x 2 0.94 0,91 0,82 0,89 0,48 0,45 5,19 5,66 3,21 5,04 3,90 3,21
100 x 5 7.07 1,05 1,05 1,03 1,03 0,65 26,49 12,45 12,45 10,53 11,87 11,33
100 x 8 14.58 1,33 2,11 1,23 1,42 0,95 36,05 13,90 14,43 12,85 16,01 14,80
5
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Table 9
Computational results of ARD-BS obtained by the compared works for the second
benchmark problem set.
n × k Type-A Type-B
GASU ACSYL PSOTL HIAYing IGYing ACSNDP GASU ACSYL PSOTL HIAYing IGYing ACSNDP
5x2 9,26 9,26 9,26 9,35 7,97 9,26 24,89 24,58 24,89 24,58 19,35 24,35
5x5 25,71 24,62 25,71 24,16 22,45 23,59 40,20 38,42 40,20 38,78 35,83 36,96
5x8 26,30 25,72 26,30 26,10 23,71 24,55 32,42 29,62 32,42 30,13 27,65 28,07
5 x 10 24,14 24,29 24,14 24,93 21,63 23,80 34,56 33,41 34,56 35,03 31,78 32,41
10 x 2 2,88 2,88 2,88 2,91 2,79 2,88 12,75 13,19 12,75 12,50 11,49 12,25
PT
10 x 5 10,45 10,26 10,45 10,12 9,38 9,90 19,58 18,93 19,58 17,96 17,69 18,92
10 x 8 19,01 18,48 19,01 18,27 16,39 18,53 33,92 33,57 33,92 32,53 31,37 33,37
20 x 10 13,68 13,46 13,68 13,34 11,47 13,33 30,75 30,34 30,75 30,42 28,45 29,67
20 x 2 5,46 5,59 5,40 5,40 5,44 5,36 6,17 5,99 6,05 5,66 5,77 5,77
RI
20 x 5 6,17 6,17 6,04 6,09 6,08 5,81 12,62 12,87 12,33 10,79 12,09 11,59
20 x 8 5,89 5,92 5,76 5,41 5,43 5,15 25,20 25,17 24,98 23,73 23,19 23,75
20 x 10 8,79 8,20 8,23 8,71 8,06 8,13 30,20 30,97 30,11 28,72 28,74 29,41
50 x 2 3,40 2,45 2,30 2,19 2,15 2,16 7,36 5,89 5,69 5,18 5,39 5,45
SC
50 x 5 2,56 2,32 1,44 1,55 2,30 1,45 15,84 14,70 12,47 10,96 13,27 11,59
50 x 8 5,44 4,42 2,91 3,65 4,16 3,00 23,08 19,85 19,41 17,96 18,44 19,37
50 x 10 4,43 3,61 2,53 3,33 3,27 2,91 26,58 25,70 23,31 22,17 22,16 23,61
100 x 2 3,31 1,98 1,62 1,62 1,59 1,53 9,34 6,98 6,56 6,03 6,74 5,55
100 x 5 4,81 2,83 2,80 2,45 2,77 2,21 16,24 11,56 11,49 10,75 10,93 9,26
U
100 x 8 2,95 1,96 1,53 1,79 1,84 1,21 20,89 16,02 15,93 15,26 14,96 14,04
100 x 10 3,07 1,31 0,98 1,27 1,23 1,01 28,01 21,25 20,93 21,08 20,07 19,98
AN
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Table 10
Relative improvements by ACSNDP in ARD-BS to the other works on both of benchmark
problem sets.
EP
Algorithm NIS AV-BS RI AV − BS

OA ACSNDP ACSNDP (%)
TSOZHJL 300 30,87 12,59 59,23
C
GASU 400 15,96 14,03 12,09

ACSYL 700 14,12 13,31 5,75
AC
PSOTL 400 14,78 14,03 5,10
HIAYing 700 13,59 13,31 2,07
PSOCFA 240 8,98 9,20 -2,50
IGYing 700 12,45 13,31 -6,90
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RI
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m1 m2 mk
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Fig. 1. A hybrid flow shop scheduling environment.
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Fig. 2. A Gantt chart representation of a solution for the 5× 2 HFSPMT.
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β
τ iu (t )ηiu (t )
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RI
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Fig. 3. The effects of the proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure.
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5000
4900 5 10
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4800 20 40
4700
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Fig. 4. ACSNDP with various values of l.
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0.7 0.5
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Fig. 5. ACSNDP with various values of ߩଵ .
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Fig. 6. ACSNDP with various values of ߩଶ .
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Number of iteration
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Fig. 7. ACSNDP with various values of ߚ.
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Fig. 8. ACSNDP with various values of ‫ݎ‬଴ .
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Fig. 9. ACSNDP with different neighbourhood sizes.
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4800 ACSNDP
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Fig. 10. Convergence curves for the five different versions of the ACSNDP algorithm.
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95% CI for the mean
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0 1 OZHJL
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HIA 5
ACSNDP 6
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p-value=0.000019
Fig. 11. Means and 95% confidence intervals on the first benchmark problem set.
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HIA 5 TL
PSO 6
ACSNDP 7
p-value=0.951754
Fig. 12. Means and 95% confidence intervals on the second benchmark problem set.
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• A novel Non-DaemonActions procedure is integrated with an ACO algorithm.

• Ants are informed with the improvements made by the local search on their solutions.
• Ants update the pheromone trails and heuristic information accordingly.
• Ants have a better chance for reaching their local optimums by themselves.
• Tested on 700 benchmark instances, and compared with other 12 well-known works.
PT
• Computational results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
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Accepted Manuscript

Ant colony system with a novel Non-DaemonActions procedure for multiprocessor

To appear in: Swarm and Evolutionary Computation BASE DATA

Received Date: 12 March 2018

In manufacturing environments, scheduling is basically related to the problem of

potential solutions [8].

metaheuristic-based algorithms. Tan et al. [18] proposed a hybrid iterative stage-based

solving many hard combinatorial optimization problems. DaemonActions procedure is an

HFSPMT with the objective of makespan minimization consists of a set of n jobs,

in time period t and equal to 0 otherwise

C i-1, j ≤ C ij − pij , i = 2,..., k , j = 1,..., n ,

C ij − S ij + 1 = pij , i = 1, ..., k , j = 1, ..., n ,

tX ijt ≤ S ij + pij − 1, i = 1, ..., k , j = 1,..., n, t = 1, ..., T ,

X ijt ∈ {0,1} , X idjt ∈ {0,1} ,

Cij ∈ {1,..., T} , i = 1,..., k , j = 1,..., n, t = 1,..., T .

3 Encoding and decoding method

4 The proposed ant colony system algorithm

4.1 Selection of the constructive heuristic

Apply the local updating rule;

xaf (t ) and backward schedule xba (t ) ;

Cmax ( x a (t )) = min (Cmax ( x af (t )), Cmax ( xba (t ))) ;

x i −b (t ) = x a (t ) ; Cmax ( xi −b (t )) = Cmax ( x a (t )) ; // update the iteration-best solution

4.2 State transition rule

according to the probability defined by the following formula.

The parameter r0 determines the relative importance of exploitation versus exploration: if

4.4 The proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure

An ACO algorithm can be imagined as the interplay of three procedures:

ConstructAntsSolutions manages a colony of ants that construct solutions of an optimization

UpdatePheromones procedure to update the pheromone concentrations on the edges of the

DaemonActions procedure is usually used to implement problem-specific or centralized

(intensification) capabilities of ACO.

4.5 Global update rule

convergence at the other values because of immoderate exploration ( r0 = 0.3 ), insufficient

proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure can make a significant improvement to the solution

5.1 Evaluation of the proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure

ACSNDP-SJ 27 (38.57%), ACSNDP-SP 13 (18.57%), and ACSNDP-SN 3 (4.29%).

ACSNDP-SJP 26 (37.14%), ACSNDP-SJ 24 (34.29%), ACSNDP-SP 10 (14.29%), and

ACSNDP-SN 1 (1.43%). Furthermore, to provide a more precise comparison of the results,

RI ARD−BS =100×(OAARD−BS − ACSNDPARD−BS ) / OAARD−BS (21)

RI ACT = (OAACT − ACSNDPACT ) / OAACT (23)

speed and accuracy.

5.2 Comparing ACSNDP with other algorithms

(20.00%), AISYing 5 (16.67%), PSOCFA 4 (13.33%), ACSYL 0 (0.00%), and TSOZHJL 0

algorithms are statistically significantly different with each other.

the order is as follows: IGYing 20 (50.00%), ACSNDP 10 (25.00%), HIAYing 6 (15.00%),

ACO is a well-known metaheuristic with a variety of successful applications.

completely omits the Non-DaemonActions procedure (non-hybrid ACS approach);

The basic idea behind the proposed Non-DaemonActions procedure is a promising

benchmark problem sets and solution files.

Operational Research Society, 39(4), 359-364.

multiprocessor flowshop problem. European Journal of Operational Research, 164(3),

Research, 34(5), 1399-1415.

International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 75(5-8), 833-847.

realistic hybrid flowshop rescheduling problem in steelmaking systems. IEEE

swarm intelligence for heterogeneous computing and cloud scheduling. Applied

Industrial Multi-Objective Scheduling Problems. In Encyclopedia of Information

problems by artificial immune system. Future generation computer systems, 20(6),

minimisation. Omega, 45, 42-56.

optimization and bottleneck heuristic to solve hybrid flow shop scheduling

[56] Sivrikaya-Şerifoglu, F., &Tiryaki, I.U., Multiprocessor task scheduling in multistage

Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 53(5-8), 761-776.

Conference on (pp. 1-3). IEEE.

Computational Intelligence and Virtual Environments for Measurement Systems and