New Algorithms for Minimizing the Weighted Number of Tardy Jobs on a Single Machine

In this paper we study the classical single machine scheduling problem where the objective is to minimize the weighted number of tardy jobs. Our analysis focuses on the case where one or more of three natural parameters is either constant or is taken as a parameter in the sense of parameterized complexity. These three parameters are the number of different due dates, processing times, and weights in our set of input jobs. We show that the problem belongs to the class of fixed parameter tractable (FPT) problems when combining any two of these three parameters. We also show that the problem is polynomial-time solvable when either one of the latter two parameters are constant, complementing Karp’s result who showed that the problem is NP-hard already for a single due date.