Article ID: | iaor2004174 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 49 |
Issue: | 7 |
Start Page Number: | 706 |
End Page Number: | 721 |
Publication Date: | Oct 2002 |
Journal: | Naval Research Logistics |
Authors: | Glazebrook Kevin D., Mitchell H.M. |
Keywords: | deteriorating items |
We consider stochastic scheduling models which have the natural character that jobs improve while being processed, but deteriorate (and may possibly leave the system altogether) while processing is diverted elsewhere. Such restless bandit problems are shown to be indexable in the sense of Whittle. A numerical study which elucidates the strong performance of the resulting index policy is complemented by a theoretical study which demonstrates the optimality of the index policy under given conditions and which develops performance guarantees for the index heuristic more generally.