Abstract. The present paper considers a more practical problem of scheduling n jobs in a two machine specially structured open shop to minimize the rental cost. Further the processing time of jobs are associated with their respective probabilities including job block criteria. In most of literature the processing times are always considered to be random, but there are significant situations in which processing times are not merely random but bear a well defined structural relationship to one another. The objective of this paper is to minimize the rental cost of machines under a specified rental policy. A numerical illustration is given to support the algorithm.

Received: May 16, 2012

AMS Subject Classification: 90B35, 90B30

Key Words and Phrases: open shop scheduling, rental policy, processing time, utilization time, makespan, idle time

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