LLM-Upgraded Graph Reinforcement Learning for Carbon-Aware Job Scheduling in Smart Manufacturing

Abstract

This paper presents \textsc{Luca}, a \underline{l}arge language model (LLM)-\underline{u}pgraded graph reinforcement learning framework for \underline{c}arbon-\underline{a}ware flexible job shop scheduling. \textsc{Luca} addresses the challenges of dynamic and sustainable scheduling in smart manufacturing systems by integrating a graph neural network and an LLM, guided by a carefully designed in-house prompting strategy, to produce a fused embedding that captures both structural characteristics and contextual semantics of the latest scheduling state. This expressive embedding is then processed by a deep reinforcement learning policy network, which generates real-time scheduling decisions optimized for both makespan and carbon emission objectives. To support sustainability goals, \textsc{Luca} incorporates a dual-objective reward function that encourages both energy efficiency and scheduling timeliness. Experimental results on both synthetic and public datasets demonstrate that \textsc{Luca} consistently outperforms comparison algorithms. For instance, on the synthetic dataset, it achieves an average of 4.1\% and up to 12.2\% lower makespan compared to the best-performing comparison algorithm while maintaining the same emission level. On public datasets, additional gains are observed for both makespan and emission. These results demonstrate that \textsc{Luca} is effective and practical for carbon-aware scheduling in smart manufacturing.