Adaptive multi-objective genetic algorithms for scheduling of drilling operation in printed circuit board industry

In this paper, a scheduling problem for drilling operation in a real-world printed circuit board factory is considered. Two derivatives of multi-objective genetic algorithms are proposed under two objectives, i.e. makespan and total tardiness time. The proposed algorithms possess a rare characteristic from traditional multi-objective genetic algorithms. The crossover and mutation rates of the proposed algorithms can be variables or adjusted according to the searching performance while the rates of traditional algorithm are fixed. Production data retrieved from the shop floor are used as the test instances. The numerical result indicates that both two proposed multi-objective genetic algorithms have satisfactory performance and the adaptive multi-objective genetic algorithm performs better. The result shows the algorithms are effective and efficiency to the current system used in the shop floor. Thus, the result may be of interest to practical applications. (c) 2006 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.