A memetic algorithm for the flexible job shop scheduling problem with job priority

A memetic algorithm for the flexible job shop scheduling problem with job priority | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article A memetic algorithm for the flexible job shop scheduling problem with job priority Yu Zheng, Ningtao Peng, Raymond Chiong, Guiliang Gong, Ao He, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7126761/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract For the flexible job shop scheduling problem, previous research has focused predominantly on operation and machine related constraints, while assuming that the jobs have no constraints. In real-world manufacturing systems, however, production scheduling with job priority is very common and is of concern to production managers. The purpose of this research is to present a multi-objective flexible job shop scheduling problem with job priority (MO-FJSPJP), aiming to minimize the makespan, total tardiness and completion time of priority jobs simultaneously. A new memetic algorithm (MA) is designed to solve the proposed MO-FJSPJP. In the proposed MA, a well-designed new chromosome encoding method (NCEM) is constructed to obtain a good initial population. A new effective local search approach (LSA) is proposed to improve the MA’s convergence speed and fully exploit its solution space. Computational experiments conducted confirm the effectiveness of the NCEM and LSA, and show that the MA is able to easily obtain better solutions for about 90% of the tested 88 challenging problem instances compared to two other well-known algorithms, demonstrating its superior performance on both solution quality and computational efficiency. The proposed MO-FJSPJP is expected to be useful for production managers in considering job priority when scheduling their operations, and the proposed MA is effective in solving this MO-FJSPJP. Physical sciences/Engineering Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing Flexible job shop scheduling. Job priority. Multi-objective optimization. Memetic algorithm. Local search Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7126761","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":491096031,"identity":"bb92c0c6-f7ce-4fdb-aee0-855ed2497b29","order_by":0,"name":"Yu Zheng","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Central South University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yu","middleName":"","lastName":"Zheng","suffix":""},{"id":491096032,"identity":"d5ba9115-2602-4d8a-bd23-9cd686ddcc3d","order_by":1,"name":"Ningtao Peng","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA2klEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACZmTOBwMbO+K0HICyGWcUpCUTZxNMCzPPh0OMDYRUm7PzHn79ocYGyOg9/NrG4AAzA/vhoxvwabFs5kuzOHAsjcGy51yadY7BHT4GnrS0G/i0GBzmMTM4wHaYweBGjplxjsEzZgYJHjMitPwDarn/xszYwuAwYwMRWowfHGwD2cJj/JiBSC1mDGf7QH7JMWPsMUhLZiPol/NnjD9UfAOFGJDx44+NHT/74WN4tQABmwSQqN8AZTCwEVAOAswfwNbBGKNgFIyCUTAK0AEAChFJ28dge4UAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Central South University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ningtao","middleName":"","lastName":"Peng","suffix":""},{"id":491096033,"identity":"66705f28-d4f9-4bda-a60c-ccb46a895acf","order_by":2,"name":"Raymond Chiong","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Newcastle Australia","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Raymond","middleName":"","lastName":"Chiong","suffix":""},{"id":491096034,"identity":"8a6cdbe1-286e-4930-8595-835bbb9da7bb","order_by":3,"name":"Guiliang Gong","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Central South University of Forestry and Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Guiliang","middleName":"","lastName":"Gong","suffix":""},{"id":491096035,"identity":"b1252b51-54ac-4695-b3e6-83b24836f50b","order_by":4,"name":"Ao He","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Central South University of Forestry and Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ao","middleName":"","lastName":"He","suffix":""},{"id":491096036,"identity":"28a75964-101d-41af-8e54-650c74277542","order_by":5,"name":"Wenhui Lin","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Hunan University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Wenhui","middleName":"","lastName":"Lin","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-07-15 06:08:22","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7126761/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7126761/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":92836900,"identity":"ce2a3054-1e75-416a-a1e7-806d37e658a9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-06 08:02:27","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1496610,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"SolvingtheFJSPwithjobpriority20250717peng.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7126761/v1_covered_0075b5d9-3704-4d35-8037-9c95b3b1fa5d.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"A memetic algorithm for the flexible job shop scheduling problem with job priority","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Flexible job shop scheduling. 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