Discrete penguins search optimization algorithm to solve flow shop scheduling problem

Flow shop scheduling problem is one of the most classical NP-hard optimization problem. Which aims to find the best planning that minimizes the makespan (total completion time) of a set of tasks in a set of machines with certain constraints. In this paper, we propose a new nature inspired metaheuristic to solve the flow shop scheduling problem (FSSP), called penguins search optimization algorithm (PeSOA) based on collaborative hunting strategy of penguins.The operators and parameter values of PeSOA redefined to solve this problem. The performance of the penguins search optimization algorithm is tested on a set of benchmarks instances of FSSP from OR-Library, The results of the tests show that PeSOA is superior to some other metaheuristics algorithms, in terms of the quality of the solutions found and the execution time.