Scheduling orders for multiple product types to minimize total weighted completion time

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-15-2007

Abstract

We consider the problem of scheduling orders for multiple different product types in an environment with m dedicated machines in parallel. The objective is to minimize the total weighted completion time. Each product type is produced by one and only one of the m dedicated machines; that is, each machine is dedicated to a specific product type. Each order has a weight and may also have a release date. Each order asks for certain amounts of various different product types. The different products for an order can be produced concurrently. Preemptions are not allowed. Even when all orders are available at time 0, the problem has been shown to be strongly NP-hard for any fixed number (≥ 2) of machines. This paper focuses on the design and analysis of efficient heuristics for the case without release dates. Occasionally, however, we extend our results to the case with release dates. The heuristics considered include some that have already been proposed in the literature as well as several new ones. They include various static and dynamic priority rules as well as two more sophisticated LP-based algorithms. We analyze the performance bounds of the priority rules and of the algorithms and present also an in-depth comparative analysis of the various rules and algorithms. The conclusions from this empirical analysis provide insights into the trade-offs with regard to solution quality, speed, and memory space. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Identifier

33947247951 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Discrete Applied Mathematics

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dam.2006.09.012

ISSN

0166218X

First Page

945

Last Page

970

Issue

8

Volume

155

Grant

0245603

Fund Ref

National Science Foundation

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