A heuristic for single machine common due date assignment problem with different earliness/tardiness weights

This paper considers the common due date assignment for single machine weighted earliness/tardiness scheduling problem with different earliness and tardiness weights for jobs where the objective is to minimize the cost of the sum of weighted earliness/tardiness and assignment common due date. The single machine common due date assignment problem where all jobs have the same earliness/tardiness weight has a polynomial-time algorithm to solve it optimally. Furthermore, some properties for the problem where the common due date is an input have been revealed by researchers in the literature. This paper proposes a heuristic algorithm for the problem using the revealed properties of similar problems’ optimal solutions such as the V-shaped property and zero-start time of the machine. The experimental study of this paper shows that the proposed heuristic finds better solutions for the problems in a reasonable time than a commercial solver has when the problem size is increased.