A Metaheuristic Framework for Energy-Intensive Industries With Batch Processing Machines
针对并行批处理机器在等待期间可关机或待机以节能的问题，提出混合整数线性规划模型和能量高效禁忌搜索算法，适用于能源密集型行业的生产调度优化。
Batch processing machines, which operate multiple jobs at a time, are commonly used in energy-intensive industries. A significant amount of energy can be saved in such industries using production scheduling as an approach to enhance efficiency. This study deals with an energy-aware scheduling problem for parallel batch processing machines with incompatible families and job release times. In such an environment, a machine may need to wait until all the jobs in the next batch become ready. During waiting time, a machine can be switched <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">off</small> or kept <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">on</small> standby for more energy-efficient scheduling. We first present a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model to solve the problem. However, the presented MILP model can only solve small problem instances. We therefore propose an energy-efficient tabu search (ETS) algorithm for solving larger problem instances. The proposed solution framework incorporates multiple neighborhood methods for efficient exploration of the search space. An energy-related heuristic is also integrated into the ETS for minimizing energy consumption during the waiting time. The performance of our proposed ETS algorithm is validated by comparing it with CPLEX for small problem instances and with two other heuristic algorithms for larger problem instances. The contribution of different components in ETS is also established in our experimental studies. The proposed solution framework is expected to bring many benefits in energy-intensive industries both economically and environmentally.