Heuristic for flow shop sequencing with separated and sequence independent setup times

This paper deals with the permutation flow shop scheduling problem with separated and sequence-independent machine setup times. A heuristic method with the objective of minimizing the total time to complete the schedule is introduced. The proposed heuristic is based on a structural property of this scheduling problem, which provides an upper bound on the idle time of the machines between the completion of the setup task and the beginning of job processing. Experimental results show that the new heuristic outperforms two existing ones.(CNPq) National Council for Scientific and Technological Developmen