Aarhus Universitets segl

Solving a large-scale precedence constrained scheduling problem with elastic jobs using tabu search

by Christian R. Pedersen, Rasmus V. Rasmussen and Kim A. Andersen
Working Papers Number 2 (October 2004)
This paper presents a solution method for minimizing makespan of a practical large-scale scheduling problem with elastic jobs. The jobs are processed on three servers and restricted by precedence constraints, time windows and capacity limitations. We derive a new method for approximating the server exploitation of the elastic jobs and solve the problem using a tabu search procedure. Finding an initial feasible solution is in general $\mathcal{NP}$-complete, but the tabu search procedure includes a specialized heuristic for solving this problem. The solution method has proven to be very efficient and leads to a significant decrease in makespan compared to the strategy currently implemented.
Format available: PDF (226 KB)