Dedicated Machine and Resource-Constrained Models

Abstract

In this chapter we consider scheduling problems in which a task requires processing on more than one machine, i.e., the task can be represented as a set of operations. In contrast to the models presented in the previous chapter, the machines in this section are no longer parallel, i.e., identical or uniform. The dedicated scheduling models in this chapter allow three classes of models, open shops, flow shops, and job shops. To each such problem type we devote a section. Unfortunately, most of the scheduling problems in this class are NP-hard, which is especially true for criteria other than C _max. In the first two sections of this chapter, we describe polynomial-time optimization algorithms for some open shop and flow shop scheduling problems. In the third section, we fiirst discuss an exact algorithm for a simple job shop problem, followed by a branch and bound procedure and a heuristic for more involved job shop problems. The fourth and last section is devoted to resource-constrained machine scheduling problems.