A single machine is available to process a collection of jobs J, each of which evolves stochastically under processing. Jobs incur costs while awaiting the machine at a rate which is state dependent and processing must respect a set of precedence constraints Γ. Index policies are optimal in a variety of scenarios. The indices concerned are characterised as values of restart problems with the average reward criterion. This characterisation yields a range of efficient approaches to their computation. Index-based suboptimality bounds are derived for general processing policies. These bounds enable us to develop sensitivity analyses and to evaluate scheduling heuristics.

Nash (1980) demonstrated that index policies are optimal for a class of generalised bandit problem. A transform of the index concerned has many of the attributes of the Gittins index. The transformed index is positive-valued, with maximal values yielding optimal actions. It may be characterised as the value of a restart problem and is hence computable via dynamic programming methodologies. The transformed index can also be used in procedures for policy evaluation.