Optimal Scheduling of Exponential Tasks with In-Tree Precedence Constraints on Two Parallel Processors Subject to Failure and Repair

• Published in: Operations research Vol. 40; no. 3-supplement-2; pp. S263 - S271
• Main Authors: Kulkarni, V. G., Chimento, P. F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linthicum, MD INFORMS 01.05.1992; Operations Research Society of America; Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Determinism; Exact sciences and technology; Failure; Induction assumption; Job shops; Mathematical models; Mathematical vectors; Objective functions; Operational research and scientific management; Operational research. Management science; Operations research; Optimal policy; Parallel processing; Plant roots; Probabilities; Production scheduling; Random variables; Scheduling; Scheduling, sequencing; Stochastic processes; stochastic: scheduling with in-tree precedence constraints; Theory; Trees; Stochastic model; Processor; Parallel system; Partial ordering; Scheduling; Repair; Failures; Optimization
• ISSN: 0030-364X; 1526-5463
• DOI: 10.1287/opre.40.3.S263

In this paper, we consider the problem of scheduling n tasks on two processors. The processing times of the n tasks are i.i.d. exponential random variables. The precedence constraints among the n tasks form an in-tree. The two processors are subject to failure and repair in a completely arbitrary manner, but are independent of the task processing times. We introduce the concept of stochastic partial ordering on random in-trees and show that among all policies, the highest level first (HLF) policy produces the smallest in-tree of unfinished tasks under the stochastic partial ordering. This implies that the HLF policy stochastically minimizes the makespan even when the two processors are subject to failures and repairs. As a special case, we also show that the HLF policy minimizes the dynamic failure probability when the processors are subject to failure, but no repairs can be done.