Implementation of an auction-based distributed scheduling model for a dynamic job shop environment

This paper presents the details of distributed implementation of a new auction-based distributed scheduling mechanism for a job shop that can be used for a wide range of objectives. The problem is modelled similar to a combinatorial auction with math programming tools used for bid construction and evaluation. Each entity in the shop is represented by a process interacting with other processes over the network as and when needed. Preliminary results from implementing this model on a network of four computers for problems of varying size indicate that the computing benefits of distributed implementation can be realized despite network delays.