Preemptive Two-Agent Scheduling in Open Shops Subject to Machine Availability and Eligibility Constraints

Abstract

We address the scheduling problem in which two agents, each with a set of preemptive jobs with release dates, compete to perform their jobs on open shop with machine availability and eligibility constraints. The objective of this study is to minimize make span, given that one agent will accept a schedule of time up to Q. We proposed a heuristic and a network based linear programming to solve the problem. Computational experiments show that the heuristic generates a good quality schedule with a deviation from the optimum of 0.25 % on average and the network based linear programming model can solve problems up to 110 jobs combined with 10 machines.