A new Simheuristics procedure for stochastic combinatorial optimization

Abstract: Ignoring uncertainty in combinatorial optimization leads to suboptimal decisions in practice. Nevertheless, the focus is often on deterministic combinatorial optimization problems, mainly because they are already challenging enough without stochasticity. To make it easier to address stochasticity in combinatorial optimization, Simheuristics have been developed that allow solving stochastic combinatorial optimization problems. We propose a new Simheuristic procedure that dynamically changes the optimization focus between a deterministic and stochastic perspective based upon a statistical model. By doing so, an adequate trade-off is made between exploration and exploitation of the solution space during the optimization. We numerically show that the new Simheuristic procedure solves real-life stochastic scheduling problems more efficiently than standard Simheuristics strategies.