Minmax scheduling problems with common flow-allowance

Abstract

In due-date assignment problems with a common flow-allowance, the due-date of a given job is defined as the sum of its processing time and a job-independent constant. We study flow-allowance on a single machine, with an objective function of a minmax type. The total cost of a given job consists of its earliness/tardiness and its flow-allowance cost components. Thus, we seek the job schedule and flow-allowance value that minimize the largest cost among all the jobs. Three extensions are considered: the case of general position-dependent processing times, the model containing an explicit cost for the due-dates, and the setting of due-windows. Properties of optimal schedules are fully analysed in all cases, and all the problems are shown to have polynomial time solutions.

Keywords:

• scheduling
• due-date assignment
• flow-allowance
• minmax

Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by The Recanati Fund and the Charles Rosen Chair of Management, The School of Business Administration, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.