A hybrid variable neighborhood search for solving the hybrid flow shop scheduling problem

A hybrid variable neighborhood search (HVNS) algorithm, which combines the key characteristics of chemical-reaction optimization (CRO) and estimation of distribution (EDA), for solving the hybrid flow shop (HFS) scheduling problems. The proposed algorithm is tested on sets of the well-known benchmark instances. Through the analysis of experimental results, the highly effective performance of the proposed HVNS algorithm is shown against the best performing algorithms from the literature.