9,633 research outputs found
A Novel Approach to the Common Due-Date Problem on Single and Parallel Machines
This paper presents a novel idea for the general case of the Common Due-Date
(CDD) scheduling problem. The problem is about scheduling a certain number of
jobs on a single or parallel machines where all the jobs possess different
processing times but a common due-date. The objective of the problem is to
minimize the total penalty incurred due to earliness or tardiness of the job
completions. This work presents exact polynomial algorithms for optimizing a
given job sequence for single and identical parallel machines with the run-time
complexities of for both cases, where is the number of jobs.
Besides, we show that our approach for the parallel machine case is also
suitable for non-identical parallel machines. We prove the optimality for the
single machine case and the runtime complexities of both. Henceforth, we extend
our approach to one particular dynamic case of the CDD and conclude the chapter
with our results for the benchmark instances provided in the OR-library.Comment: Book Chapter 22 page
Better Unrelated Machine Scheduling for Weighted Completion Time via Random Offsets from Non-Uniform Distributions
In this paper we consider the classic scheduling problem of minimizing total
weighted completion time on unrelated machines when jobs have release times,
i.e, using the three-field notation. For this
problem, a 2-approximation is known based on a novel convex programming (J. ACM
2001 by Skutella). It has been a long standing open problem if one can improve
upon this 2-approximation (Open Problem 8 in J. of Sched. 1999 by Schuurman and
Woeginger). We answer this question in the affirmative by giving a
1.8786-approximation. We achieve this via a surprisingly simple linear
programming, but a novel rounding algorithm and analysis. A key ingredient of
our algorithm is the use of random offsets sampled from non-uniform
distributions.
We also consider the preemptive version of the problem, i.e, . We again use the idea of sampling offsets from non-uniform
distributions to give the first better than 2-approximation for this problem.
This improvement also requires use of a configuration LP with variables for
each job's complete schedules along with more careful analysis. For both
non-preemptive and preemptive versions, we break the approximation barrier of 2
for the first time.Comment: 24 pages. To apper in FOCS 201
Integrating labor awareness to energy-efficient production scheduling under real-time electricity pricing : an empirical study
With the penetration of smart grid into factories, energy-efficient production scheduling has emerged as a promising method for industrial demand response. It shifts flexible production loads to lower-priced periods to reduce energy cost for the same production task. However, the existing methods only focus on integrating energy awareness to conventional production scheduling models. They ignore the labor cost which is shift-based and follows an opposite trend of energy cost. For instance, the energy cost is lower during nights while the labor cost is higher. Therefore, this paper proposes a method for energy-efficient and labor-aware production scheduling at the unit process level. This integrated scheduling model is mathematically formulated. Besides the state-based energy model and genetic algorithm-based optimization, a continuous-time shift accumulation heuristic is proposed to synchronize power states and labor shifts. In a case study of a Belgian plastic bottle manufacturer, a set of empirical sensitivity analyses were performed to investigate the impact of energy and labor awareness, as well as the production-related factors that influence the economic performance of a schedule. Furthermore, the demonstration was performed in 9 large-scale test instances, which encompass the cases where energy cost is minor, moderate, and major compared to the joint energy and labor cost. The results have proven that the ignorance of labor in existing energy-efficient production scheduling studies increases the joint energy and labor cost, although the energy cost can be minimized. To achieve effective production cost reduction, energy and labor awareness are recommended to be jointly considered in production scheduling. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Scheduling to Minimize Total Weighted Completion Time via Time-Indexed Linear Programming Relaxations
We study approximation algorithms for scheduling problems with the objective
of minimizing total weighted completion time, under identical and related
machine models with job precedence constraints. We give algorithms that improve
upon many previous 15 to 20-year-old state-of-art results. A major theme in
these results is the use of time-indexed linear programming relaxations. These
are natural relaxations for their respective problems, but surprisingly are not
studied in the literature.
We also consider the scheduling problem of minimizing total weighted
completion time on unrelated machines. The recent breakthrough result of
[Bansal-Srinivasan-Svensson, STOC 2016] gave a -approximation for the
problem, based on some lift-and-project SDP relaxation. Our main result is that
a -approximation can also be achieved using a natural and
considerably simpler time-indexed LP relaxation for the problem. We hope this
relaxation can provide new insights into the problem
On Idle Energy Consumption Minimization in Production: Industrial Example and Mathematical Model
This paper, inspired by a real production process of steel hardening,
investigates a scheduling problem to minimize the idle energy consumption of
machines. The energy minimization is achieved by switching a machine to some
power-saving mode when it is idle. For the steel hardening process, the mode of
the machine (i.e., furnace) can be associated with its inner temperature.
Contrary to the recent methods, which consider only a small number of machine
modes, the temperature in the furnace can be changed continuously, and so an
infinite number of the power-saving modes must be considered to achieve the
highest possible savings. To model the machine modes efficiently, we use the
concept of the energy function, which was originally introduced in the domain
of embedded systems but has yet to take roots in the domain of production
research. The energy function is illustrated with several application examples
from the literature. Afterward, it is integrated into a mathematical model of a
scheduling problem with parallel identical machines and jobs characterized by
release times, deadlines, and processing times. Numerical experiments show that
the proposed model outperforms a reference model adapted from the literature.Comment: Accepted to 9th International Conference on Operations Research and
Enterprise Systems (ICORES 2020
Common Due-Date Problem: Exact Polynomial Algorithms for a Given Job Sequence
This paper considers the problem of scheduling jobs on single and parallel
machines where all the jobs possess different processing times but a common due
date. There is a penalty involved with each job if it is processed earlier or
later than the due date. The objective of the problem is to find the assignment
of jobs to machines, the processing sequence of jobs and the time at which they
are processed, which minimizes the total penalty incurred due to tardiness or
earliness of the jobs. This work presents exact polynomial algorithms for
optimizing a given job sequence or single and parallel machines with the
run-time complexities of and respectively, where
is the number of jobs and the number of machines. The algorithms take a
sequence consisting of all the jobs as input and
distribute the jobs to machines (for ) along with their best completion
times so as to get the least possible total penalty for this sequence. We prove
the optimality for the single machine case and the runtime complexities of
both. Henceforth, we present the results for the benchmark instances and
compare with previous work for single and parallel machine cases, up to
jobs.Comment: 15th International Symposium on Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for
Scientific Computin
A Note on NP-Hardness of Preemptive Mean Flow-Time Scheduling for Parallel Machines
In the paper "The complexity of mean flow time scheduling problems with
release times", by Baptiste, Brucker, Chrobak, D\"urr, Kravchenko and Sourd,
the authors claimed to prove strong NP-hardness of the scheduling problem
, namely multiprocessor preemptive scheduling where the
objective is to minimize the mean flow time. We point out a serious error in
their proof and give a new proof of strong NP-hardness for this problem
Constraint satisfaction adaptive neural network and heuristics combined approaches for generalized job-shop scheduling
Copyright @ 2000 IEEEThis paper presents a constraint satisfaction adaptive neural network, together with several heuristics, to solve the generalized job-shop scheduling problem, one of NP-complete constraint satisfaction problems. The proposed neural network can be easily constructed and can adaptively adjust its weights of connections and biases of units based on the sequence and resource constraints of the job-shop scheduling problem during its processing. Several
heuristics that can be combined with the neural network are also presented. In the combined approaches, the neural network is used to obtain feasible solutions, the heuristic algorithms are used to improve
the performance of the neural network and the quality of the obtained solutions. Simulations have shown that the proposed
neural network and its combined approaches are efficient with respect to the quality of solutions and the solving speed.This work was supported by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation under Grant 69684005 and the Chinese National High-Tech Program under Grant 863-511-9609-003, the EPSRC under Grant GR/L81468
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