Analyzing various aspects of scheduling independent jobs on identical machines

Machine scheduling problems are counted among the most classic topics in the field of discrete applied mathematics and operations research and have therefore been intensively studied during the last five decades. One basic problem is the non-preemptively scheduling of a set of independent jobs on identical parallel machines which is dealt with in this thesis. Three different but related objective functions are considered that indirectly aim at practice-oriented balanced schedules. Despite the multitude of contributions to scheduling problems in literature, this thesis brings up interesting questions that have hardly or not yet been investigated. Thereby, detailed and in-depth analyses of heuristic solution procedures as well as dominance-relationships between different heuristics play an important role. Moreover, the present work contributes to optimal scheduling by containing a complete characterization of the set of potentially optimal makespan schedules in a two-machine environment. Finally, attractive ideas and suggestions for future research top off this thesis.