The “Largest Variance First” Policy in Some Stochastic Scheduling Problems

Michael Pinedo and Gideon Weiss
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Michael Pinedo: Columbia University, New York, New York
Gideon Weiss: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

Operations Research, 1987, vol. 35, issue 6, 884-891

Abstract: We consider a situation in which n jobs, requiring random amounts of processing, all with the same mean, are to be scheduled on m parallel machines with respect to one of two objectives: expected flowtime and expected makespan. We discuss optimality of the rule that says to schedule the jobs with the largest variance first (LVF). We show that for some very simple job length distributions, LVF minimizes both the expected flowtime and the expected makespan.

Keywords: 592; priority; scheduling; by; variance; of; stochastic; processing; time (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:oropre:v:35:y:1987:i:6:p:884-891

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