Solving a Multiprocessor Problem by Column Generation and Branch-and-price

MILP models to minimise makespan in additive manufacturing machine scheduling problems

A quadratic time algorithm to maximize the number of just-in-time jobs on identical parallel machines

Minimizing the sum of earliness/tardiness in identical parallel machines schedule with incompatible job families: An improved MIP approach

Incentive compatible mechanisms for scheduling two-parameter job agents on parallel identical machines to minimize the weighted number of late jobs

A common due-date assignment problem on parallel identical machines

A heuristic algorithm is developed for the classical scheduling problem in which independent jobs are nonpreemptively scheduled on identical parallel machines with the objective of minimizing the makespan with load balancing. The algorithm uses iteratively the LPT procedure to be successful computational tools in many hard Combinatorial Optimization problems. We present an approximation algorithm based on balance the Hopfild with binary decision variables which are a kind of assignment variables for the classical deterministic scheduling problem of minimizing the makespan on identical machines. These problems are characterized by their complexity, known as NP-hard in most cases. Computational results indicate that the proposed algorithm is very competitive with respect to well-known constructive algorithms for a large number of benchmark.

Column Generation is a very powerful class of combinatorial optimization algorithms that has been used successfully to solve a variety of large scale optimization problems. Its application has helped many companies in various industries increase revenue and reduce costs significantly, particularly in transportation, energy, manufacturing, and telecommunication companies. In this chapter, we will first discuss the motivations for column generation, then we will provide an intuitive but rigorous treatment of the mechanisms of column generation – how it works, why it works. We will then give descriptions on the branch and price algorithm and several examples of column generation’s successful applications in one of the world’s largest airlines. We will discuss monthly airline crew schedule optimization for bidlines, crew pairing optimization, and integrated modeling of fleet and routing in the optimization of aircraft scheduling. Part of the focus is on business requirements and priorities in these areas and how the column generation models are built to effectively meet these challenges. Some airline industry domain-specific details are provided to allow the readers to better appreciate the scheduling problems’ complexities that made the master-subproblem approach in column generation essential. We will also discuss the significant run-time speedups for these large scale scheduling problems due to various practical model enhancements, as well as progress in the large scale optimization space made possible by technologies such as parallel processing, big data, and better chips. At last, we will briefly discuss several example variants of column generation and their applications in various industries. We will also review recent applications of optimization techniques to machine learning as well as the future potentials of large scale optimization in this field. This chapter can be used as a primer on the fundamentals of column generation techniques since it clearly addresses essential theoretical concepts that are sometimes elusive to researchers and graduate students who are new to this area. The chapter should also be helpful to practitioners who would like to gain insights into how to build effective column generation models to solve real world large scale optimization problems.

A malleable task is a computational unit which may be executed on any arbitrary number of processors, its execution time depend- ing on the amount of resources allotted to it. According to the standard behavior of parallel applications, we assume that the mal- leable tasks are monotonic, i.e. that the execution time is decreas- ing with the number of processors while the computational work increases. This paper presents a new approach for scheduling a set of independent malleable tasks which leads to a worst case guar- antee of for the minimization of the parallel execution time, or makespan. It improves all other existing practical results includ- ing the two-phases method introduced by Turek et al. The main idea is to transfer the difficulty of a two phases method from the scheduling part to the allotment selection. We show how to formu- late this last problem as a knapsack optimization problem. Then, the scheduling problem is solved by a dual-approximation which leads to a simple structure of two consecutive shelves.

Makespan minimization on identical machines is a fundamental problem in online scheduling. The goal is to assign a sequence of jobs to m identical parallel machines so as to minimize the maximum completion time of any job. Already in the 1960s, Graham showed that Greedy is (2-1/m)-competitive. The best deterministic online algorithm currently known achieves a competitive ratio of 1.9201. No deterministic online strategy can obtain a competitiveness smaller than 1.88. In this paper, we study online makespan minimization in the popular random-order model, where the jobs of a given input arrive as a random permutation. It is known that Greedy does not attain a competitive factor asymptotically smaller than 2 in this setting. We present the first improved performance guarantees. Specifically, we develop a deterministic online algorithm that achieves a competitive ratio of 1.8478. The result relies on a new analysis approach. We identify a set of properties that a random permutation of the input jobs satisfies with high probability. Then we conduct a worst-case analysis of our algorithm, for the respective class of permutations. The analysis implies that the stated competitiveness holds not only in expectation but with high probability. Moreover, it provides mathematical evidence that job sequences leading to higher performance ratios are extremely rare, pathological inputs. We complement the results by lower bounds, for the random-order model. We show that no deterministic online algorithm can achieve a competitive ratio smaller than 4/3. Moreover, no deterministic online algorithm can attain a competitiveness smaller than 3/2 with high probability.

The Wafer Probing Scheduling Problem (WPSP) is a practical generalization of the parallel-machine scheduling problem, which has many real-world applications, particularly, in the Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturing industry. In the wafer probing factories, the jobs are clustered by their product types, which must be processed on groups of identical parallel machines and be completed before the due dates. The job processing time depends on the product type, and the machine setup time is sequentially dependent on the orders of jobs processed. Since the wafer probing scheduling problem involves constraints on job clusters, job-cluster dependent processing time, due dates, machine capacity, and sequentially dependent setup time, it is more difficult to solve than the classical parallel-machine scheduling problem. In this paper, we consider the WPSP and formulate the WPSP as an integer programming problem to minimize the total machine workload. We demonstrate the applicability of the integer programming model by solving a real-world example taken from a wafer probing shop floor in an IC manufacturing factory.

Identical parallel machine scheduling problem for minimizing the makespan is a very important production scheduling problem which has been proven to be NP-hard. The problem further compounds with additional constraints. Genetic algorithms (GA) have shown great advantages in solving the combinatorial optimization problem in view of its characteristic that has high efficiency and that is fit for practical application. In this chapter we present a spreadsheet based GA approach for minimizing the makespan for scheduling of a set of tasks for identical parallel machines and worker assignment to machines. The results obtained from the proposed approach are compared with two sets of benchmark problems consisting of 100 problems each. It has been demonstrated that the performance of proposed approach is superior to the results that have been obtained earlier. The proposed approach produces optimal solution for almost 95% of the problems demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach. An empirical analysis of GA parameters has also been carried out to see the effect on the performance of the proposed algorithm.

This paper addresses the problem of scheduling n jobs on a single machine and on m identical parallel machines to minimize the completion time variance of jobs. This problem of scheduling jobs on parallel machines is motivated by a case study in an automobile ancillary unit. First, a heuristic to solve the single-machine scheduling problem is proposed. The parallel-machine scheduling problem is solved in two phases: job-allocation phase and job-sequencing phase. Two heuristics are proposed in the job-allocation phase, whereas in the job-scheduling phase, the single-machine scheduling approach is used. In this paper, both versions of parallel-machine scheduling problem (restricted and unrestricted) are considered. A good upper bound is obtained using a genetic algorithm, to evaluate the performance of the proposed heuristics for the parallel-machine scheduling problem. An extensive computation evaluation of the proposed heuristics is presented for both single-machine scheduling problem and the parallel-machine scheduling problem (especially considering the case study), along with the comparison of performances with the existing heuristics in the literature.

Scheduling of jobs has been a challenging task in manufacturing and the most real life scheduling problems, which involves multi-objectives and multi-machine environments. This paper presents tabu search and simulated annealing approaches for scheduling jobs on identical parallel machines. The identical parallel machine scheduling problem has been considered to minimize the mean tardiness for the jobs. Initially, an initial solution has been obtained using EDD dispatching rule then, simulated annealing and tabu search have been applied to reach a near optimal solution. Computational experiments are performed on problems with up to 10 machines and 150 jobs. The computational results indicate that the two proposed approaches are capable of obtaining better solutions for the given scheduling problem. Moreover, the tabu search approach provides better solution then simulated annealing approach.

This paper addresses a real-life production scheduling problem with identical parallel machines, originating from a plant producing Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) plate products. In the considered practical scheduling problem, ABS plate has some specific specifications and each specification has several different levels. Because there is at least one different level of specification between two ABS plate products, it is necessary to make a set-up adjustment on each machine whenever a switch occurs from processing one ABS plate product to another product. As tardiness leads to extra penalty costs and opportunity losses, the objective of minimising total tardiness has become one of the most important tasks for the schedule manager in the plant. The problem can be classified as an identical parallel machine scheduling problem to minimise the total tardiness. A dispatching rule is proposed for this problem and evaluated by comparing it with the current scheduling method and several existing approaches. Moreover, an iterated greedy-based metaheuristic is developed to further improve the initial solution. The experimental results show that the proposed metaheuristic can perform better than an existing tabu search algorithm, and obtain the optimal solution for small-sized problems and significantly improve the initial solutions for large-sized problems.

A Column Generation Approach for Discrete Lotsizing and Scheduling Problem on Identical Parallel Machines