Mathematical challenges in scheduling theory

Abstract

Scheduling is the allocation of resources over time to execute a set of tasks that belong-in most applications-to computational and manufacturing processes.During execution, the tasks compete for required resources.Resources can be of different categories, e.g.manpower, money, processors (machines), energy, tools, transportation (by truck, robot, drone, etc.).There is a limited quantity of resources and the scheduler determines how to allocate the resources to tasks over time to complete them.The quality of a schedule is mostly determined by attributes of the tasks.These attributes may include release times, due dates, priority weights, functions describing task processing in relation to allotted resources, technical restrictions, economical limitations or temporal restrictions.A scheduler must design a schedule that satisfies the specified restrictions while optimizing one or more goals that evaluate the quality of the generated solution.There