Technical Note
Journal of the Operational Research Society (2001) 52, 234–237. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601074
An approximation algorithm for parallel machine scheduling with a common server
Guoqing Wang1,2 and T C Edwin Cheng2
- 1Jinan University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China
- 2The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Correspondence: T C E Cheng, Department of Management, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong. E-mail: mscheng@polyu.edu.hk
Received November 1999; Accepted September 2000.
Abstract
In this paper we study the scheduling of a given set of jobs on several identical parallel machines tended by a common server. Each job must be processed on one of the machines. Prior to processing, the server has to set up the relevant machine. The objective is to schedule the jobs so as to minimize the total weighted job completion times. We provide an approximation algorithm to tackle this intractable problem and analyze the worst-case performance of the algorithm for the general, as well as a special, case of the problem.
Keywords:
parallel machine scheduling, approximation algorithm, worst-case analysis
