A faster algorithm for 2-cyclic robotic scheduling with a fixed robot route and interval processing times

Consider an m-machine production line for processing identical parts served by a mobile robot. The problem is to find the minimum cycle time for 2-cyclic schedules, in which exactly two parts enter and two parts leave the production line during each cycle. This work treats a special case of the 2-cyclic robot scheduling problem when the robot route is given and the operation durations are to be chosen from prescribed intervals. The problem was previously proved to be polynomially solvable in O(m⁸log m) time. This paper proposes an improved algorithm with reduced complexity O(m⁴).