Multiple-crane integrated scheduling problem with flexible group decision in a steelmaking shop

Abstract

This paper abstracts a practical problem from the iron and steel enterprise, and researches a multiple crane integrated scheduling problem with flexible group decision (crane grouping scheduling for short). For this demonstrated NP-hard problem, we propose a heuristic algorithm based on some analyzed properties. For a restrict case, we analyze the worst-case performance. Further, for the general case, the average performance of the heuristic algorithm is computationally evaluated. The results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm is capable of generating good quality solutions.