Family scheduling problems are characterized by a setup time structure where setups are only required between jobs from different families. We consider the problem of scheduling job families on parallel machines to minimize weighted deviation about a common due date. Various special cases of this problem have been considered in the literature. This note summarizes known complexity results and i...

In this article we investigate the application of iterated local search (ILS) to the single machine total weighted tardiness problem. Our research is inspired by the recently proposed iterated dynasearch approach, which was shown to be a very effective ILS algorithm for this problem. In this paper we systematically configure an ILS algorithms by optimizing the single procedures part of ILS and ...

The problem of scheduling groups of jobs on a single machine under the group technology assumption is studied. Jobs of the same group are processed contiguously and a sequence independent setup time precedes the processing of each group. All jobs have a common fixed due date, which can be either unrestrictively large or restrictively small. The objective is to minimize the total weighted earlin...

A two-stage stochastic programming model is formulated for a distributed scheduling problem with scenario tree structure. The model allows independent and self-interested job agents to request resources in an asynchronous fashion. Rather than an exact starting time, the central agent gives a time window for one coming job immediately. The final schedule is made based on the total weighted tardi...

technique to face the NP-hard single machine total weighted tardiness scheduling problem in presence of sequence-dependent setup times. The search technique is called Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization (DPSO): differently from previous approaches the proposed DPSO uses a discrete model both for particle position and velocity and a coherent sequence metric. We tested the proposed DPSO over a b...

The traditional focus of scheduling research is on finding schedules with a low implementation cost. However, in many real world scheduling applications finding a robust or flexible schedule is just as important. A robust schedule is a quality schedule expected to still be acceptable if something unforeseen happens, while a flexible schedule is a quality schedule expected to be easy to change. ...

This paper considers the SLK/DIF due window assignment problems on a single machine with general job-dependent positional effect, where actual processing time of job is subject to and effect. Production schedulers may decide outsource/reject some jobs by paying corresponding costs. Based whether accept tardiness jobs, we consider two different objectives under slack assignment, respectively. Th...

FACULTY OF SOCIAL, HUMAN AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES Mathematical Sciences Doctor of Philosophy THE VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM WITH RELEASE AND DUE DATES: FORMULATIONS, HEURISTICS AND LOWER BOUNDS Benjamin C. Shelbourne A novel extension of the classical vehicle routing and scheduling problem is proposed that integrates aspects of machine scheduling into vehicle routing. Associated to each customer ...