The authors consider the problem of scheduling n independent and simultaneously available jobs on one processor. Each job has a specified processing time and a preferred starting time. The jobs are to be scheduled nonpreemptively on the processor to begin as close to their preferred starting times as possible. The authors examine one cost measure-the maximum weighted discrepancy from the preferred starting time. Under an assumption on penalty weights, they show that the problem is reducible to the problem with equal penalty weights and the algorithm given by Garey, Tarjan and Wilfong can be modified to solve the present problem.
