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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2016
We present structural properties of optimal policies for the problem of scheduling a single server in a forest network of N queues (without arrivals) subject to switching penalties. In addition to linear holding costs, we impose either lump sum switching costs or batch set-up delays which are incurred at each instant the server processes a job in a queue different from the previous one. We use reward rate notions to unearth conditions on the holding costs and service distributions for which an exhaustive policy is optimal. For the case of two nodes connected probabilistically in tandem, we explicitly define an optimal policy under similar conditions.
This work was supported in part by a Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Fellowship and by NSF grant No. NCR-9204419.