A new heuristic algorithm for four machines stochastic flow shop scheduling model

In this paper, a new heuristic algorithm is constructed for four machines stochastic flow shop scheduling problem to utilized stochastic processing times and stochastic sequence dependent setup times of the jobs on the machines simultaneously. The main objective to construct this heuristic algorithm is to find the optimal or near optimal sequence to minimize the makespan, total utilization time of the machines and total rental cost of all the hired machines. A numerical example is provided to verify the effectiveness of the developed heuristic algorithm.