Approximation algorithms for demand-based job scheduling with reconfigurable resources
We consider a scheduling problem with reconfigurable resources. Several types of jobs (e.g. transportation tasks, production operations) have to be processed by a set of identical resources (e.g. robots, workers, processors) over a discrete time horizon. In each time period, teams of resources must...
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| Published in: | Discrete Applied Mathematics Vol. 381; pp. 292 - 312 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier B.V
15.03.2026
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| Subjects: | |
| ISSN: | 0166-218X |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | We consider a scheduling problem with reconfigurable resources. Several types of jobs (e.g. transportation tasks, production operations) have to be processed by a set of identical resources (e.g. robots, workers, processors) over a discrete time horizon. In each time period, teams of resources must be formed to process jobs. During a given time period, a team handles one type of job and the number of jobs that can be processed depends on the team size. A resource which is used to perform some job type in a given period may be employed for another job type in the next period. The objective is to determine the minimum number of resources needed to meet a given demand for each job type. We show that the resulting strongly NP-hard Multi_Bot problem may be handled in a greedy way with an approximation ratio of 4/3. Furthermore, as a more general and theoretical statement, we present a PTAS for Multi_Bot.
•Properties of the MultiBot problem and relationship with other problems.•Approximation algorithm with constant factor 4/3.•Polynomial-time approximation scheme for Multibot. |
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| ISSN: | 0166-218X |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.dam.2025.11.032 |