Flow shop scheduling with blocking time is a problem with zero buffer and it has been widely studied in recent years. In particular, minimizing makespan is the most popular objective function in blocking flow shop scheduling problems. Hence, it is urgent to develop an effective algorithm for minimizing the makespan in the blocking flow shop.
So far, many researches have been conducted on blocking flow shop scheduling for minimizing makespan, but no literature presents a mathematical model considering the machine blocking time for this problem.
Rim Kum Chol, a researcher at the Faculty of Automatics, proposed a flow shop scheduling model aimed at makespan minimization considering the machine blocking, and an improved genetic algorithm based on some genetic operations tailored to the problem.
First, he presented a mathematical model of the blocking flow shop scheduling problem by introducing the new consideration of machine blocking. Second, he proposed an improved genetic algorithm using some tailored genetic operators such as the order crossover and the fragment inversion interchange mutation.
The proposed algorithm can be applied to not only blocking flow shop scheduling problems but also other scheduling problems and even to many optimization problems with some modifications.
For more information, please refer to his paper “Improved Genetic Algorithm for Flow Shop Scheduling Problem with Machine Blocking to Minimize Makespan” in “Second International Conference on Intelligent Transportation and Smart Cities (ICITSC 2025)” (EI).