Optimization of supply chain management scheduling using hybrid adaptive NSGA-II genetic algorithm

Abstract

Supply-chain scheduling in modern production systems faces significant challenges due to the complexity of balancing cost efficiency, delivery lead times, and order variability—especially under stochastic demand and uncertain transportation conditions. Conventional metaheuristic approaches, such as the standard Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II), often struggle with premature convergence, limited population diversity, and rigid parameter settings that hinder adaptability in dynamic environments. To address these limitations, this study proposes a novel Hybrid Adaptive NSGA-II (HA-NSGA-II) framework, enhanced by two key innovations: (1) a Global-Intensity Mutation Operator (GIMO) that strengthens population diversity by dynamically adjusting mutation intensity across the entire solution space; and (2) an Adaptive Parameter Self-Tuning (APST) module based on reinforcement learning, which intelligently regulates crossover and mutation rates in response to evolutionary progress and environmental changes. A tri-objective optimization model is formulated to simultaneously minimize total supply chain cost, order quantity variance (mitigating the bullwhip effect), and customer delivery delays. The proposed HA-NSGA-II demonstrates superior convergence and diversity performance compared to traditional NSGA-II, offering a more robust and adaptive solution for complex, real-world supply chain scheduling under uncertainty. The model is tested on a simulated supply chain with 5 factories, 15 warehouses, and 50 customers facing random demand and Gaussian-distributed lead times. The new HA-NSGA-II is compared with traditional NSGA-II, SPEA2, and MOEA/D based on Hypervolume (HV), Inverted Generational Distance (IGD), Spread (Δ), Total Inventory Cost, Bullwhip Index (BI), and Robustness Index (RI). Results of 50 simulation runs demonstrate that HA-NSGA-II surpasses all the baseline algorithms with 12.9% enhancement in HV, 41.1% improvement in IGD, and 13.7% reduction in convergence time. In addition, it delivers a 14.6% supply chain cost reduction, a 20.4% bullwhip effect suppression, and 25% accelerated times of fulfillment. The research concludes that the HA-NSGA-II provides a scalable and effective scheduling approach applicable for real-time Industry 4.0 supply chains. Work in the future involves expanding the framework towards multi-period dynamic environments using IoT and blockchain-based visibility.