Consider the problem in which n jobs that are classified into k types are to be scheduled on m identical machines without preemption. A machine requires a proper setup taking s time units before processing jobs of a given type. The objective is to minimize the makespan of the resulting schedule. We design and analyze an approximation algorithm that runs in time polynomial in n, m and k and computes a solution with an approximation factor that can be made arbitrarily close to 3 2.
Very recently, @cite_5 studied the problem of scheduling splittable jobs on unrelated machines. Here, unrelated refers to the fact that each job may have a different processing time on each of the machines. In their model, jobs may be split and each part might be assigned to a different machine but requires a setup before being processed. For this problem and the objective of minimizing the makespan they show their algorithm to have an approximation factor of at most @math , where @math is the golden ratio.
@cite_5
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We study a natural generalization of the problem of minimizing makespan on unrelated machines in which jobs may be split into parts. The different parts of a job can be (simultaneously) processed on different machines, but each part requires a setup time before it can be processed. First we show that a natural adaptation of the seminal approximation algorithm for unrelated machine scheduling [11] yields a 3-approximation algorithm, equal to the integrality gap of the corresponding LP relaxation. Through a stronger LP relaxation, obtained by applying a lift-and-project procedure, we are able to improve both the integrality gap and the implied approximation factor to 1 + φ, where φ ≈ 1.618 is the golden ratio. This ratio decreases to 2 in the restricted assignment setting, matching the result for the classic version. Interestingly, we show that our problem cannot be approximated within a factor better than e e-1 ≈ 1.582 (unless P = NP). This provides some evidence that it is harder than the classic version, which is only known to be inapproximable within a factor 1.5 - e. Since our 1 + φ bound remains tight when considering the seemingly stronger machine configuration LP, we propose a new job based configuration LP that has an infinite number of variables, one for each possible way a job may be split and processed on the machines. Using convex duality we show that this infinite LP has a finite representation and can be solved in polynomial time to any accuracy, rendering it a promising relaxation for obtaining better algorithms. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.