Hybrid sliding level Taguchi-based particle swarm optimization for flowshop scheduling problems

• This study is concerned with a multi-objective flowshop scheduling problem.
• A hybrid sliding level Taguchi-based PSO (HSLTPSO) algorithm is proposed for FSP.
• As a result, it exhibits a significant improvement in Pareto optimal solutions of FSP.
• HSLTPSO is an effective means in solving a multi-objective flowshop scheduling problem.

A hybrid sliding level Taguchi-based particle swarm optimization (HSLTPSO) algorithm is proposed for solving multi-objective flowshop scheduling problems (FSPs). The proposed HSLTPSO integrates particle swarm optimization, sliding level Taguchi-based crossover, and elitist preservation strategy. The novel contribution of the proposed HSLTPSO is the use of a PSO to explore the optimal feasible region in macro-space, the use of a systematic reasoning mechanism of the sliding level Taguchi-based crossover to exploit the better solution in micro-space, and the use of the elitist preservation strategy to retain the best particles of multi-objective population for next iteration. The sliding level Taguchi-based crossover is embedded in the PSO to find the best solutions and consequently enhance the PSO. Using the systematic reasoning way of the Taguchi-based crossover with considering the influence of tuning factors α, β and γ is presented in this study to solve the conflicting problem of non-feasible solutions and to find the better particles. As a result, it exhibits a significant improvement in Pareto best solutions of the FSP. By combining the advantages of exploration and exploitation, from the computational experiments of the six test problems, the HSLTPSO provides better results compared to the existing methods reported in the literature when solving multi-objective FSPs. Therefore, the HSLTPSO is an effective approach in solving multi-objective FSPs.