1. ¹University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
2. ²University of Greenwich, London, UK

Correspondence: CN Potts, School of Mathematics, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. E-mail: C.N.Potts@soton.ac.uk

Received July 2008; Accepted December 2008.

Abstract

Scheduling has become a major field within operational research with several hundred publications appearing each year. This paper explores the historical development of the subject since the mid-1950s when the landmark publications started to appear. A discussion of the main topics of scheduling research for the past five decades is provided, highlighting the key contributions that helped shape the subject. The main topics covered in the respective decades are combinatorial analysis, branch and bound, computational complexity and classification, approximate solution algorithms and enhanced scheduling models.