A hybrid simulated annealing-tabu search algorithm for the part selection and machine loading problems in flexible manufacturing systems

Part selection and machine loading are two major problems in the production planning phase of the flexible manufacturing systems. The problems have a combinatorial structure and usually, in practice, it is difficult to deal with this kind of problems using a mathematical programming model. In this paper, the above problems are formulated as a mixed-integer programming model which is handled sequentially and solved by a diversification-strategy-added version of the hybrid tabu search/simulated annealing algorithm of Zhang et al. (Comput Oper Res 35:282–294, 2008) presented in 2008. The performance of the algorithm is tested on eight random-generated problems with different sizes. The results are compared with those of the mathematical programming model, the original version of Zhang et al.’s (Comput Oper Res 35:282–294, 2008) algorithm and also a tabu search algorithm developed earlier by the authors.