A new dispatching rule for the stochastic single-machine scheduling problem

In this article, the authors consider the n-job single-machine scheduling problem in which jobs with stochastic processing time requirements arrive to the system at random times. The performance measure combines both mean and variance of job completion times. In this study, a dispatching rule is designed to minimize the performance measure using a simulation model built using AWESIM. Different variations of the rule are tested to select the best implementing policy of the rule. Extensive experimentation is conducted to determine the best parameter values in terms of problem parameters.