Schedule execution for two-machine flow-shop with interval processing times

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of how to best execute the schedule in a two-phase scheduling decision framework by considering a two-machine flow-shop scheduling problem in which each uncertain processing time of a job on a machine may take any value between a lower and upper bound. The scheduling objective is to minimize the makespan. There are two phases in the scheduling process: the off-line phase (the schedule planning phase) and the on-line phase (the schedule execution phase). The information of the lower and upper bound for each uncertain processing time is available at the beginning of the off-line phase while the local information on the realization (the actual value) of each uncertain processing time is available once the corresponding operation (of a job on a machine) is completed. In the off-line phase, a scheduler prepares a minimal set of dominant schedules, which is derived based on a set of sufficient conditions for schedule domination that we develop in this paper. This set of dominant schedules enables a scheduler to quickly make an on-line scheduling decision whenever additional local information on realization of an uncertain processing time is available. This set of dominant schedules can also optimally cover all feasible realizations of the uncertain processing times in the sense that for any feasible realizations of the uncertain processing times there exists at least one schedule in this dominant set which is optimal.