Minimizing Variation of Flow Time in Single Machine Systems

This paper addresses the problem of n jobs to be scheduled on a single machine in such a way that flow time variation is minimized. When the measure of variation is total absolute difference of completion times (TADC) the problem is shown to be quite simple. Sufficient conditions are shown for minimal TADC and a simple method for generating an optimal solution is provided. When the measure of variation is variance of flow time the problem is much more difficult. For this case a heuristic method for scheduling is proposed. The heuristic is simple and provides solutions which compare favorably with others found in the literature.