Hybrid flow shop scheduling considering machine electricity consumption cost

► This paper proposes a new ant colony optimization (MOACO) meta-heuristic considering not only production efficiency but also electric power cost (EPC) with the presence of time-of-use (TOU) electricity prices. ► The results from computational experiments indicate that the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed MOACO is comparable to NSGA-II and SPEA2. ► The guideline about how to set preference over multiple objectives has been studied. ► This result has significant managerial implications in real life production. ► The parameter analysis shows that durations of TOU periods and processing speed of machines have great influence on scheduling results as longer off-peak period and use of faster machines provide more flexibility for shifting high-energy operations to off-peak periods.