Heuristic scheduling of parallel heterogeneous queues with set-ups

The authors consider the problem of allocating a single server to a system of queues with Poisson arrivals. Each queue represents a class of jobs and processes a holding cost rate, general service distribution, and general set-up time distribution. The objective is to minimize the expected holding cost due to the waiting of jobs. A set-up time is required to switch from one queue to another. The authors provide a limited characterization of the optimal policy and a simple heuritic scheduling policy for this problem. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our heuristic over a wide range of problem instances.