Minimizing a generalized quadratic penalty function of job completion times: An improved branch-and-bound approach

This paper considers the problem of minimizing a generalized quadratic penalty function of job completion times on a single machine. It presents some optimality conditions which, if satisfied for some jobs, build a priori precedence relationships for those jobs, thus curtailing the enumeration effort at the branching stage. A branch-and-bound approach is presented to solve the problem. The computational results are also reported.