A bicriteria approach to minimize the total weighted number of tardy jobs with convex controllable processing times and assignable due dates

Abstract

We study a single-machine scheduling problem in a flexible framework where both job processing times and due dates are decision variables to be determined by the scheduler. The model can also be applied for quoting delivery times when some parts of the jobs may be outsourced. We analyze the problem for two due date assignment methods and a convex resource consumption function. For each due date assignment method, we provide a bicriteria analysis where the first criterion is to minimize the total weighted number of tardy jobs plus due date assignment cost, and the second criterion is to minimize total weighted resource consumption. We consider four different models for treating the two criteria. Although the problem of minimizing a single integrated objective function can be solved in polynomial time, we prove that the three bicriteria models are $\mathcal{NP}$-hard for both due date assignment methods. We also present special cases, which frequently occur in practice, and in which all four models are polynomially solvable.