Multitasking scheduling with multiple rate‐modifying activities

Abstract This paper considers scheduling problems with human operators having the option to perform multiple rate‐modifying activities (MRMAs) while they are carrying out multitasking. Thus, the processing of a selected task suffers jointly from interruptions by other available but unfinished tasks and MRMAs. Two types of objective functions are studied: single‐criterion minimizing the total completion time, and multicriteria minimizing a weighted combination of the total completion time, the total absolute differences in completion times, and a weighted combination of the total waiting time and the total absolute differences in waiting times. We propose optimal solution algorithms for all the studied problems and also analyze some special cases of them.