Makespan 2026-10-31
The time at which all work in a scheduling instance has finished, equivalently the largest completion time measured from a common start. For divisible job sizes and positive machine speeds , when each machine's completion time is its total assigned size divided by its speed, the minimum makespan is . The lower bound follows from total processing capacity; assigning the fraction of each job to machine attains it.
Assume job sizes and machine speeds , with at least one machine. Let be the amount of job assigned to machine , and let be the proposed makespan. Use the linear program
The first family of constraints assigns every job completely. The second bounds each machine's completion time by , since is equivalent to . It is a linear inequality because is an input constant. There is no integrality restriction: jobs are divisible as specified in this scheduling model.
To verify the formulation, any actual allocation defines the variables above, with equal to its largest completion time, and satisfies every constraint. Conversely, from a feasible solution, assign amount to machine and process its assigned pieces consecutively. Its total time is at most , so the linear program realizes the claimed makespan.
There is also a useful exact check. Put and . Summing machine constraints gives , so . Assigning
makes every machine's completion time , proving
This relies on the paper's divisible-work model, in which machine completion times depend only on total assigned size. If , the optimum is .