An improved approximation algorithm for the ancient scheduling problem with deadlines

The aim of this paper is to develop an improved polynomial-time approximation algorithm belonging to the family of the fully polynomial time approximation schemes (FPTAS), for an ancient scheduling problem with deadlines. The algorithm permits to answer a question posed more than three decades ago in Gens & Levner (1981): “Can an epsilon-approximation algorithm be found for the minimization version of the job-sequencing-with-deadlines problem running with the same complexity as the algorithms for the maximization form of the problem?” The new algorithm provides the positive answer.