Scheduling to minimize earliness and number of tardy jobs where machine idle time is allowed

We address the bicriteria problem of minimizing the number of tardy jobs and maximum earliness on a single machine where machine idle time is allowed. We show that the problem of minimizing the number of tardy jobs while maximum earliness is kept at its minimum value of zero is polynomially solvable. We present polynomial time algorithms for the maximum earliness problem subject to no tardy jobs and the maximum earliness problem for a given set of tardy jobs. Finally, we discuss the use of the latter algorithm in generating all efficient schedules.