The use of Slow Down Factors for the Analysis and Development of Scheduling Algorithms for Parallel Cluster Tools

In this paper, we describe the problem of developing scheduling algorithms for an environment of parallel cluster tools, which is a special case of the parallel unrelated machines problem. At first we will describe the problem under consideration in detail and then present our scheduling environment and the idea of using slow down factors to predict lot cycle times to evaluate schedules and parts of them. This article is more a conceptual kind of work containing mostly basic thoughts to illustrate facets of the problem and first solution ideas. Nonetheless the authors see a high potential in examining these questions. Little research has been done on that issue so far