Scalable distributed evolutionary algorithm orchestration using Docker containers

In smart factories, integrated optimisation of manufacturing process planning and scheduling leads to better results than a traditional sequential approach but is computationally more expensive and thus difficult to be applied to real-world manufacturing scenarios. In this paper, a working approach for cloud-based distributed optimisation for process planning and scheduling is presented. Three managers dynamically governing the creation and deletion of subpopulations (islands) evolved by a multi-objective genetic algorithm are proposed, compared and contrasted. A number of test cases based on two real-world manufacturing scenarios are used to show the applicability of the proposed solution.