On the Job-Shop Scheduling Problem

This is a proposal for the application of discrete linear programming to the typical job-shop scheduling problem—one that involves both sequencing restrictions and also noninterference constraints for individual pieces of equipment. Thus far, no attempt has been made to establish the computational feasibility of the approach in the case of large-scale realistic problems. This formulation seems, however, to involve considerably fewer variables than two other recent proposals [Bowman, E. H. 1959. The schedule-sequencing problem. Opns Res. 7 621–624; Wagner, H. 1959. An integer linear-programming model for machine scheduling. Naval Res. Log. Quart. (June).], and on these grounds may be worth some computer experimentation.