A Novel Disruptive Innovation-Like Algorithm for Single-Machine Scheduling with Sequence-Dependent Family Setup Times

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper tackles the single-machine scheduling with family dependent set-up times. A novel solution approach (DILA) is presented which makes use of different populations. The algorithm falls into the field of evolution-based metaheuristics but differs a bit from standard Genetic Algorithms. It stems from the theory of disruptive innovation, which is surprising but the results are convincing. The author compares the performance of the algorithm to several benchmark methods and shows that new best solutions and significantly better average results can be found.

I only have some minor comments.

• ATCS needs to be briefly explained
• A brief interpretation of the results presented in Table 3 would be helpful
• In the introduction it would be good to go more into detail how the theory of disruptive innovation relates to the proposed algorithm. This becomes clear later in the paper but in the introduction readers are left with a question mark.

Author Response

We really appreciate the expertise of the reviewer.  The valuable comments did point out several drawbacks in our paper.  We have tried our best to revise the paper based on the comments.  It is hoped that this revision will meet the reviewer's criterion.  The review report is attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

See additional document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We really appreciate the expertise of the reviewer.  The valuable comments did point out several drawbacks in our paper.  We have tried our best to revise the paper based on the comments.  It is hoped that this revision will meet the reviewer's criterion.  The review report is attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx