In this paper a polynomial time approximation scheme, PTAS for short, is presented for the problem of scheduling jobs in a batch processing system. Each job has a pre-defined release date, which indicates when the job is available, and a pre-defined burn-in time, which is the least time needed for processing the job. At one time, at most
B jobs can be processed together, where
B is a pre-given number. No preemption is permitted.
Keywords approximation algorithm - batch processing - release date - geometric rounding - time stretching
Research supported in part by an RGC CERG grant [CityU 1081/02E] and a grant from CityU [7001347].Supported by the fund from NSFC under grant numbers 10271065 and 60373025.