Algorithms for end-to-end scheduling to meet deadlines

In a multiprocessor or distributed system, jobs may need to be executed on more than one processor. When all the jobs execute on different processors in turn in the same order, the problem of end-to-end scheduling on the processors is known as the flow-shop problem. The paper describes two optimal polynomial-time algorithms for scheduling jobs in flow shops to meet deadlines, for two special cases where the scheduling problem is tractable. For the general case, where an optimal polynomial-time algorithm is unlikely to be found, a heuristic algorithm is presented