A decomposition approach for a resource constrained scheduling problem

Minimizing makespan in a multimode multiprocessor shop scheduling problem

“…The case of scheduling with multiple modes has been dealt with in the literature in a number of papers related to the project scheduling area (see Wȩglarz [18,19], Talbot [16], Drexl [8], Serafini and Speranza [12], Speranza and Vercellis [13], Boctor [7], Sprecher [14], and Kolisch [11]). …”

“…The models close to the examined one, which indeed are more general, are studied in the area of multimode project scheduling, where the published heuristic algorithms are mainly based on priority rules, or use a decomposition of the problem [5,12,13]. This is the approach followed in [5] where the multimode scheduling problem is decomposed into two N P-hard problems: the mode assignment problem, and the single mode scheduling problem; a feasible solution to the multimode problem is then obtained in two steps by giving first a feasible mode assignment, and then, with that mode assignment, by giving a feasible schedule by means of a priority-rule-based algorithm.…”