Fast neighborhood search for the single machine earliness–tardiness scheduling problem

This paper addresses the one machine scheduling problem in which n jobs have distinct due dates with earliness and tardiness costs. Fast neighborhoods are proposed for the problem. They are based on a block representation of the schedule. A timing operator is presented as well as swap and extract-and-reinsert neighborhoods. They are used in an iterated local search framework. Two types of perturbations are developed based, respectively, on random swaps and earliness and tardiness costs. Computational results show that very good solutions for instances with significantly more than 100 jobs can be derived in a few seconds.