Single-Machine Job Scheduling about a Common Due Date with Arbitrary Earliness/Tardiness Penalties Using a Genetic Algorithm

（received October 2001; revision received November 2001;accepted January 2002） We consider the problem of scheduling jobs on a single machine about a common due date. Our objective is to determine the common due date and processing sequence of new jobs together with the re-sequencing of old jobs which minimize the sum of jobs’ earliness/tardiness, completion time penalties and due date related penalty. We drive properties that can be used to find the optimal common due date and processing sequence. Since our problem is NP-hard, we propose a genetic algorithm to solve the problem efficiently. Results from computational study reveal that the genetic algorithm can generate near optimal solutions.