Discrete Fireworks Algorithm for Single Machine Scheduling Problems

Over the recent years, Fireworks Algorithm has recorded an increasing success on solving continuous optimization problems, due to its efficiency, simplicity and more importantly its rapid convergence to good optimums. Thus, the Fireworks Algorithm performance is now widely comparable with the most popular methods in the optimization field such as evolutionary computation and swarm intelligence techniques. This paper introduces a discrete Fireworks Algorithm for combinatorial single machine scheduling problems. Taking advantage of the robust design of the original Fireworks Algorithm, a new adaptation of sparks generation is proposed with a novel use of the control parameters. To verify the explorative performance of the algorithm, a hybridization with Variable Neighborhood Search heuristic is implemented. To validate it, the proposed method is tested with several benchmarks instances of the single machine total weighted tardiness. A comparison with other optimization algorithms is also included. The obtained results exhibit the high performance of the proposed method.