Job Shop Scheduling with Unit Processing Times
Nikhil Bansal, Tracy Kimbrel, Maxim I. Sviridenko · Mathematics of Operations Research · 2006
We consider randomized algorithms for the preemptive job shop problem, or equivalently, the case in which all operations have unit length. We give an α-approximation for the case of two machines where α < 1.45, an improved approximation ratio of O(log m/log log m) for an arbitrary number m of machines, and the first (2 + ε)-approximation for a constant number of machines. The first result is via an approximation algorithm for a string matching problem that is of independent interest.