In this paper, we propose different local search algorithms to solve a realistic variant of the flowshop problem. The variant considered here is a hybrid flexible flowshop problem with sequence-dependent setup times, and with the objective of minimizing the total tardiness. In this variant of flowshop, stage skipping might occur, i.e., not all stages must be visited by all jobs. This scheduling...

We introduce a scheduling method where stochasticallyexecuting soft real-time tasks are assigned to simple sporadic servers with predetermined execution budgets. We show that using this method, any task system whose average-case total utilization is less than the number of processors can be scheduled so that tardiness is bounded in the average case. The constraint on average-case utilization is...

This paper considers the problem of scheduling a given number of jobs on a single machine to minimize total earliness and tardiness when family setup times exist. The paper proposes optimal branch-and-bound algorithms for both the group technology assumption and if the group technology assumption is removed. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to solve larger problems with the group technology as...

In the paper, we investigate two single processor problems, which deal with the process of negotiation between a producer and a customer about delivery time of final products. This process is modelled by a due interval, which is a generalization of well known classical due date and describes a time interval, in which a job should be finished. In this paper we consider two different mathematical...

Traditional research on machine scheduling focuses on job allocation and sequencing to optimize certain objective functions that are defined in job completion times. With regard to environmental concerns, energy consumption becomes another critical concern in high-performance systems. In this paper, we address the scheduling problem in a multiple machine system where the computing speeds of the...

This paper investigates three scheduling algorithms and three inventory control policies to evaluate their effect on the system performance measures using computer simulation. The model chosen is a flow-shop type, computer assembly plant. Analysis is conducted on two scheduling measures (summation of process time and tardiness) and two inventory control measures (ordering cost and holding cost)...

This paper focuses on the problem of scheduling a set of independent jobs with setup times and job splitting, on a set of identical parallel machines such that total tardiness is minimized. In this study, it is assumed that a job can be split into sub-jobs and these sub-jobs can be processed independently on parallel machines. Because the problem is NP-hard, a memetic algorithm (MA) is proposed...

The Earliest Deadline First (EDF) scheduling algorithm is known to be suboptimal for meeting all deadlines under global scheduling on multiprocessor platforms. However, EDF is an attractive choice for scheduling soft-real-time systems on multiprocessors. Previous work has demonstrated that the maximum tardiness is bounded, and has derived formulas for computing tardiness bounds, in EDF-schedule...

In this paper we describe a simplified way to implement performance control in a multi-tier computing system designed for e-commerce applications. We show that the simpler SISO (Single Input Single Output) controller, rather than a more complex distributed or centralized MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) controller, works well, regardless of the presence of multiple cluster nodes and multip...