A modified ABC algorithm for the stage shop scheduling problem

- A modified artificial bee colony algorithm is proposed for the stage shop scheduling problem.
- The stage shop is a new extension for the mixed shop problem and as a result, for job shop and open shop problems.
- In employed bee phase of ABC, a potent neighborhood of the stage shop is used and a tabu search manner is substituted for greedy selection.
- In onlooker bee phase of ABC, particle swarm optimization idea is applied instead of completely random search.
- The proposed algorithm obtained new optimal solutions and upper bounds for benchmark problems.