Solving hybrid flow shop problem using energetic reasoning and global operations

This paper shows that the use of satisfiability tests and time-bound adjust ments based on energetic reasoning and global operations can enhance the ef ficiency of branch and bound procedures for optimally solving the hybrid fl ow shop scheduling problem. Procedures to use energetic reasoning and exten ded forms of global adjustment techniques are described and are empirically evaluated. Computational results show that the proposed approaches outperf orm the best known procedures to optimally solve the hybrid flow shop probl em. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.