Single Machine Models (Deterministic)

Abstract

Single machine models are important for various reasons. The single machine environment is very simple and a special case of all other environments. Single machine models often have properties that neither machines in parallel nor machines in series have. The results that can be obtained for single machine models not only provide insights into the single machine environment, they also provide a basis for heuristics that are applicable to more complicated machine environments. In practice, scheduling problems in more complicated machine environments are often decomposed into subproblems that deal with single machines. For example, a complicated machine environment with a single bottleneck may give rise to a single machine model.