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An Almost Optimal Heuristic for Preemptive C max Scheduling of Dependent Tasks on Parallel Identical Machines

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Abstract

We consider the problem of scheduling preemptable, dependent tasks on parallel, identical machines to minimize the makespan. The computational complexity of this problem remains open if the number of machines is fixed and larger than 2. The aim of this paper is to compare two heuristic algorithms on a basis of a computational experiment. The solutions generated by the heuristics are compared with optimal solutions obtained by a branch-and-bound algorithm. Computational results show that the heuristic based on node ordering finds optimal schedules for 99.9% of instances with the maximum relative deviation from optimum of 4.8%.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computing Science, Poznań, University of Technology, Piotrowo 3a, 60-965, Poznań, Poland

    Joanna Józefowska, Marek Mika, Rafał Różycki, Grzegorz Waligóra & Jan Węglarz

Authors
  1. Joanna Józefowska
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  2. Marek Mika
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  3. Rafał Różycki
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  4. Grzegorz Waligóra
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  5. Jan Węglarz
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Józefowska, J., Mika, M., Różycki, R. et al. An Almost Optimal Heuristic for Preemptive C max Scheduling of Dependent Tasks on Parallel Identical Machines. Annals of Operations Research 129, 205–216 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ANOR.0000030689.69422.e1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ANOR.0000030689.69422.e1

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