Scheduling Problems with Two Competing Agents

• Published in: Operations research Vol. 52; no. 2; pp. 229 - 242
• Main Authors: Agnetis, Allesandro, Mirchandani, Pitu B, Pacciarelli, Dario, Pacifici, Andrea
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linthicum INFORMS 01.03.2004; Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Subjects: Agency theory; Cost functions; Deadlines; Facsimiles; Game theory; games/group decisions: cooperative sequencing; Integers; Job shops; Mathematical models; Objective functions; Operations research; Optimal solutions; Optimization; Polynomials; Production scheduling; production/scheduling: multiagent deterministic sequencing; Schedules; Scheduling; Sequencing; Studies
• ISSN: 0030-364X; 1526-5463
• DOI: 10.1287/opre.1030.0092

We consider the scheduling problems arising when two agents, each with a set of nonpreemptive jobs, compete to perform their respective jobs on a common processing resource. Each agent wants to minimize a certain objective function, which depends on the completion times of its jobs only. The objective functions we consider in this paper are maximum of regular functions (associated with each job), number of late jobs, and total weighted completion times. We obtain different scenarios, depending on the objective function of each agent, and on the structure of the processing system (single machine or shop). For each scenario, we address the complexity of various problems, namely, finding the optimal solution for one agent with a constraint on the other agent's cost function, finding single nondominated schedules (i.e., such that a better schedule for one of the two agents necessarily results in a worse schedule for the other agent), and generating all nondominated schedules.