A Coordination Mechanism for Scheduling Game on Parallel-Batch Machines with Deterioration Jobs

Abstract

In this study, we consider a parallel-batch machines scheduling game problem with deterioration jobs. The processing time of a job is a simple linear function of its starting time. Each of the parallel-batch machines can process up to B jobs simultaneously as a batch. The processing time of a batch is the processing time of the job with the longest deteriorating rate in the batch. All jobs in the same batch start and complete at the same time. Each job as an agent and its individual cost is the completion time of the job. We present a coordination mechanism for the scheduling game problem with social cost of minimizing the makespan in this paper, namely fully batch longest deteriorating rate. For this problem, we precisely quantify the inefficiency of Nash equilibrium by the logarithm price of anarchy. It is defined to be the ratio between the logarithm of social cost of the worst Nash equilibrium and the logarithm of social cost of an optimum schedule. In addition, we discuss the existence of Nash equilibrium and present an upper bound and lower bounds on the logarithm price of anarchy of the coordination mechanism. We show that the mechanism has a logarithm price of anarchy at most 2 − 1 / 3 m a x m , B − 2 / 3 B .