Minimizing maximum earliness on parallel identical machines

This paper addresses the scheduling problem of minimizing maximum earliness (or, more generally, maximizing minimum lateness) on parallel identical machines. We prove that the two-machine case is NP-hard in the ordinary sense, and introduce a pseudo-polynomial dynamic programming algorithm for this case. When the number of machines is arbitrary, the problem is shown to be NP-hard in the strong sense. Then we introduce an efficient heuristic and two simple upper bounds on the optimal minimum lateness value. Finally we provide an extensive numerical study which indicates that the heuristic performs well in various job and machine settings.