Iterative local search algorithm for no-wait flowshop scheduling problems to minimize makespan

In this paper, NP-hard no-wait flowshop scheduling problems with makespan minimization are considered. An iterative local search method is proposed which performs a randomized walk in the space of local optima until some stop criterion is satisfied. A perturbation mechanism and a compound neighborhood operator (or move ) are presented. The proposal is compared with the best algorithm so far. Experimental results show the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing one in effectiveness and in efficiency.