Scheduling parallel batching machines in a sequence

Ward Passchyn () and Frits C. R. Spieksma ()
Additional contact information
Ward Passchyn: KU Leuven
Frits C. R. Spieksma: KU Leuven

Journal of Scheduling, 2019, vol. 22, issue 3, No 6, 335-357

Abstract: Abstract Motivated by the application of scheduling a sequence of locks along a waterway, we consider a scheduling problem where multiple parallel batching machines are arranged in a sequence and process jobs that travel along this sequence. We investigate the computational complexity of this problem. More specifically, we show that minimizing the sum of completion times is strongly NP-hard, even for two identical machines and when all jobs travel in the same direction. A second NP-hardness result is obtained for a different special case where jobs all travel at an identical speed. Additionally, we introduce a class of so-called synchronized schedules and investigate special cases where the existence of an optimum solution which is synchronized can be guaranteed. Finally, we reinforce the claim that bidirectional travel contributes fundamentally to the computational complexity of this problem by describing a polynomial time procedure for a setting with identical machines and where all jobs travel in the same direction at equal speed.

Keywords: Machine scheduling; Complexity; Parallel batching machine; Machine sequence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10951-018-0560-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jsched:v:22:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10951-018-0560-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10951

DOI: 10.1007/s10951-018-0560-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Scheduling is currently edited by Edmund Burke and Michael Pinedo

More articles in Journal of Scheduling from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().