Preemption in single machine earliness-tardiness scheduling

Official URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/v861904127586367/fulltext.pdf

We consider a single machine earliness/tardiness scheduling problem with general weights, ready times and due dates. Our solution approach is based on a time-indexed preemptive relaxation of the problem. For the objective function of this relaxation, we characterize cost coe±cients that are the best among those with a piecewise linear structure with two segments. From the solution to the relaxation with these best objective function coe±cients, we generate feasible solutions for the original non-preemptive problem. We report extensive computational results demonstrating the speed and effectiveness of this approach.