The book gives an introduction to metaheuristics for students and practitioners. It requires no prior knowledge of the field, as the basic concepts are developed step by step from the bottom up using the knapsack problem and therefore allowing the user to concentrate on the main ideas of metaheuristics. The concepts are then expanded to concrete algorithms, which are described in detail. Then a systematization of the algorithms is established and compared with existing classification schemes from literature. The last part of the book deals with the application of popular metaheuristics to two optimization problems from the field of production and logistics, namely the Job Shop Scheduling and the Vehicle Routing Problem, based on examples.
Author(s): Günther Zäpfel, Roland Braune, Michael Bögl (auth.)
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 316
Tags: Production/Logistics; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Optimization
Front Matter....Pages I-X
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Introduction....Pages 3-6
The Knapsack Problem and Straightforward Optimization Methods....Pages 7-29
Search Heuristics....Pages 31-64
Front Matter....Pages 66-66
Metaheuristics in General....Pages 67-73
Metaheuristics Based on Solution Construction....Pages 75-93
Metaheuristics Based on Solution Modification....Pages 95-119
Metaheuristics Based on Solution Recombination....Pages 121-143
Summarizing Remarks on Metaheuristics....Pages 145-155
Front Matter....Pages 158-158
Metaheuristics in Machine Scheduling....Pages 159-235
Metaheuristics in Vehicle Routing....Pages 237-290
Summary....Pages 291-299
Back Matter....Pages 301-316
