A hybrid imperialist competitive algorithm for the outpatient scheduling problem with switching and preparation times

During recent years, the outpatient scheduling problem has attracted much attention from both academic and medical fields. This paper considers the outpatient scheduling problem as an extension of the flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP), where each patient is considered as one job. Two realistic constraints, i.e., switching and preparation times of patients are considered simultaneously. To solve the outpatient scheduling problem, a hybrid imperialist competitive algorithm (HICA) is proposed. In the proposed algorithm, first, the mutation strategy with different mutation probabilities is utilized to generate feasible and efficient solutions. Then, the diversified assimilation strategy is developed. The enhanced global search heuristic, which includes the simulated annealing (SA) algorithm and estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA), is adopted in the assimilation strategy to improve the global search ability of the algorithm.?Moreover, four kinds of neighborhood search strategies are introduced to?generate new?promising?solutions.?Finally, the empires invasion strategy?is?proposed to?increase the diversity of the population. To verify the performance of the proposed HICA, four efficient algorithms, including imperialist competitive algorithm, improved genetic algorithm, EDA, and modified artificial immune algorithm, are selected for detailed comparisons. The simulation results confirm that the proposed algorithm can solve the outpatient scheduling problem with high efficiency.